The Four Epochs of Woman's Life; A Study in Hygiene — John Shaqi
The Four Epochs of Woman's Life; A Study in HygieneGalbraith, Anna M. (Anna Mary)
Science
The Four Epochs of Woman's Life; A Study in Hygiene
Galbraith, Anna M. (Anna Mary)
Women -- Health and hygiene
This man, accustomed all his life to gratify his sexual passions
promisculously, marries a virtuous young girl. In her menstrual
periods she has had to do only with the secondary phenomena; with the
expulsion of the ova not at all. She has had no instruction in the
corresponding physiologic life of the man, and is astonished at the
male sexual indications, and is led to believe in their physiologic
necessities. The result is that she not only suffers physically, but
feels outraged and disgraced. She is liable to the chance of maternity
at any time; and such offspring will probably be sickly.
Passion is presented to the young wife in so hideous a guise that it
will take the utmost consideration of her husband afterward to enable
her to completely overcome her repugnance. If she be worn and weary of
excesses in the early days of her married life, the husband will have
only himself to blame if he is bound all his life to an apathetic and
irresponsive wife. Husbands place great strains upon the affections of
their wives, and lower themselves almost past reinstatement in their
respect and esteem.
Lastly, on what scientific basis does this "physilogic necessity" for
sexual gratification on the part of the male rest? Analogy with the
lower animals does not bear it out. Among animals, except in rare
instances under domestication, the female admits the male in sexual
embrace only for procreation. Among many savage tribes this same rule
has but few exceptions. The analogies between the male and the female
sexual organs; between seminal emissions and menstruation; between the
sexual life of the male and of the female, only go to accentuate the
fact that this so-called physiologic necessity on the part of the male
has arisen chiefly through the difference of education; so that it has
come to be that the woman is chaste and the man is degraded; that the
woman is too sentimental and the man too passionate. From a purely
medical standpoint, the most eminent physicians and physiologists of
the day all unite in advocating a chaste and continent life, simply
for the sake of the man's own health, independently of all other
considerations.
Times when Marital Relations Should be Suspended.-- The marital
relations should always be suspended during the menstrual period.
During pregnancy intercourse should never, or at least very rarely, be
indulged in. At this time the mother needs to conserve all her
strength and energies for herself and child; and any sexual relations
during this time increase the sufferings of the mother and impair the
vitality of the child. It has been even suggested that much of the
pain during parturition would be avoided by entire continence during
pregnancy. Intercourse during the early months of pregnancy is a
frequent cause of abortion. Women who have supposed that they have
never been pregnant have in reality been having abortions every second
or third month.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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