Women of easy morals are always willing to espouse the cause of the "black sheep," and to further the matrimonial success of the penitent _roue_. Many mothers are willing to marry their daughters to the polished villain of society, who is known as a rake and debauchee, if his family connections are desirable. It has been even held that a youth who did not "sow his wild oats" was of doubtful stamina. That many able men have sown wild oats is indisputable, and that many men who are respectful husbands, have also gone "through the mill" is also true, but this need not blind us to the fact that thousands upon thousands, who could have been successful men of affairs and creditable husbands and fathers, have been utterly ruined, as a result of having sown wild oats. No man is a better man because of a past record of licentious habits. The man who sows and escapes the harvest is lucky. The man who reaps, reaps in abundance. Most men regret the lapses of youth. Most of these lapses would never have occurred if the impulse could have been governed by the reasoning of maturity. These acts are the promptings of an impetuosity which may be entirely foreign to the individual's innate character, but brought out by promiscuous circumstances and the ignorance and license of youth. If we can protect youth, by an adequate knowledge of the consequences, we will furnish the means to tide over the impressionable period. Until a healthy maturity of judgment will assume the task unaided. The effects of the wild oats' theory are too tragically evident to need any argumentative refutation. The statistics of the prevalency of venereal diseases alone is sufficient; the results of these diseases are more than enough. Study the records of the jails and prisons, courts and asylums, hospitals and health resorts, think of the hundreds of thousands of diseased and deformed and mentally inferior children, of the multitude of paretics, melancholies, ataxics, maniacs, syphilitics,--all the products of "wild oats,"--and ask if the wild oats' theory is justifiable. Think of the ruined homes, the wretched lives of fallen women, the hopeless prayers of abandoned wives, the loneliness and misery of parents neglected and forgotten, the "bastards" and fatherless children, the drunkards and criminals and tramps--all weeds of the wild oats' harvest. Then reflect upon the tragedies, the suicides of the betrayed and of the diseased, the bank thief, the broken hearts of deserted and hungry children, the army of inefficients--around whose necks hang wild oats' medals, the men of big business, who constantly fight the effects of early incontinence and abuse, and the thousands who go to early graves, and then ask, in all justice, if the sowing of wild oats needs justification.