In the case of woman, it is _absolutely_ impossible to determine whether the gonorrhea has made her sterile or not; because there is no way of expressing an ovum from the ovary. The woman may not have had any pain or inflammation in the Fallopian tubes, and yet there may have been sufficient inflammation to close up the orifices of the tubes. On the other hand, she may have had a severe salpingitis on _both sides and still be fertile_. Nor is there any way of telling whether the ovaries were so involved in the process as to become incapable of generating healthy ova, or any ova at all. In short, there is absolutely no way of telling whether a woman is sterile or fertile--we can only surmise. And our surmise in this respect is liable to be wrong just as often as right. The only way the question can be decided is by experience. If the prospective husband is willing to take a chance, well and good. While just as many girls marry as do young men, still, in practice, we always shall have to examine an incomparably larger number of male than of female candidates. This is due, not only to the fact that an incomparably larger number of men suffer from venereal disease, but also because very few women will confess to their fiances that they ever entertained antematrimonial relations and--what is still worse--were infected with venereal disease. This, of course, is owing to our double standard of morality, which looks upon as a trivial or no offense in the man what it condemns as a heinous crime in the woman. I have known hundreds of men who confessed freely to their fiancees that they had had gonorrhea, but I have known only two girls who made a confession of the fact to their future husbands. They got married, however, and lived happily with their husbands ever after. CHAPTER THIRTY MARRIAGE AND SYPHILIS Rules for Permitting a Syphilitic Patient to Marry--Rules More Severe in Cases Where Children Are Desired--Where Both Partners Are Syphilitic--Danger of Paresis in Some Syphilitic Patients--A Case in the Author's Practice. The problem of the syphilitic differs from the problem of the exgonorrheal patient. When a gonorrheal patient is cured, so far as infectivity is concerned, and is not sterile, there is no apprehension as to the offspring. Gonorrhea is not hereditary, and the child of a gonorrheal patient does not differ from the child of a nongonorrheal person. In the case of syphilis, it is different. The patient may be safe so far as infecting the partner is concerned, but yet there may be danger for the offspring. The rules for permitting a man or a woman who once had syphilis to marry, therefore, are different from those applied to the gonorrheal patient. Here are the rules: