Men are very ready to find an excuse for self-indulgence; and if they cannot get one anywhere else, they seek it in religion. They tell the woman it is her duty to bear all the children she can. They refer her to the sturdy, strong-limbed women of early times, to the peasant women of northern Europe, who emigrate to America, and ask and expect their wives to rival them in fecundity. Such do not reflect that they have been brought up to light indoor employment, that their organization is more nervous and frail, that they absolutely have not the stamina required for many confinements. Moreover, they presume too much in asking her to bear them. 'If a woman has a right to decide on any question,' said a genial physician in the Massachusetts Medical Society a few years since, 'it certainly is as to how many children she shall bear.' 'Certainly,' say the editors of a prominent medical journal, 'wives have a right to demand of their husbands at least the same consideration which a breeder extends to his stock.' 'Whenever it becomes unwise that the family should be increased,' says Sismondi again, '_justice_ and _humanity_ require that the husband should impose on himself the same restraint which is submitted to by the unmarried.' An eminent writer on medical statistics, Dr. Henry MacCormac, says: 'The brute yields to the generative impulse when it is experienced. He is troubled by no compunction about the matter. Now, a man ought not to act like a brute. He has reason to guide and control his appetites. Too many, however, forget, and act like brutes instead of as men. It would, in effect, prove very greatly conducive to man's interests were the generative impulses placed absolutely under the sway of right reason, chastity, forecast, and justice.'