Married Love

il

u, and you

r own sake, but

sleep greater h

ake at the touch

Whi

through the flux of his personality the realisatio

ware of its separateness than of its oneness with the vital forces of creation. Yet the glow of half swooning rapture in

rapture is not purely physical. The half swooning sense of flux which overtakes the spirit in that eternal moment at the apex of rapture sweeps into its flaming tides the whole essence of the man and woman, and as it were, the heat o

of supreme joy the two lovers bring back with

hem a chil

to each other's arms. Only by the fusion of two can the new human life come into being, and only by creati

l glory. But in the hearts of all who have known true love lies the realisati

e world of the lower animals there is an immense wastage of all the young lives created, and it is necessary that myriads should be conceived in order that a small number should reach maturity, so in our bodies (specialised though they are in comparison with the lower animals) both sexes still produce a far larger number of germs awaiting fertilisation than can

celibate as well as in every married woman. While myriads of sperm cells are destroyed even in the process of the act which does ensure fertilisation of the woman by the single favoured sperm. If the theologians really mean what they say, and demand the voluntary effort of complete celibacy from all men, save f

ithout creating an embryo, there can be nothing wrong in selecting the most favourable moment possible for the

of the very earliest unions results in the fertilisation of the wife, so t

re doing, they would allow at least six months or a year to elapse before beginnin

economic conditions are hard, as they so often are in "civilised" life, it may be bette

ile they were young students in the University, and fourteen years later they had their first child, a splendidly healthy boy. Though such a long interval is certainly not to be universally recommended, as it

e potential parents should take the wise precaution of delay, unless owing

wisdom and love of the parents can devise. And the first and most vital condition of its h

ism make her less fitted to bear a child at the very commencement of marriage

piness of the married lovers. It is generally (though perhaps not always) wise thoroughly to establish their relation to each ot

ent society there is little doubt that the early birth of a child demands much self-sacrifice and self-restraint from the man, one of the reflex vibrations of which is his undefinable sense of loss a

ently virile to feel the need of sex intercourse, but he was unaware (as are so many men) of the woman's corresponding need; and h

conceived, and a child was born

ir marriage before they met in anything like a normal way. By that time the long separation from sex-life, and the strain on the man, coupled with daily familiarity at home, had dimmed, if

health from having any intercourse. When, after that time, she recovered and passionately desired the true marriage r

rapture." And with the loss of that early rapture the two lose, for the rest of their lives, the irradia

t themselves to each other and have experienced the full possibilities of complete love-making, the disturbance wh

er married lover have not only entered paradise together, but when she fully realises, through insight gained by her own experience

hould or should not have relations while the wife is bearing an unborn child. In this matter experience is very vario

ark so many of our modern customs, we cannot but think that the safe side of this debatable question must be in the complete continence of the woman for at least six months before the bir

at one and the same time a mistress, an exhausted mother, and a sickly, irritable, hysterical individual. And the husband loves her as his mistress, ignores

red temple of a developing life, she should also consider the perpetual strain which nature imposes upon him; and

who sympathises with, because she understands, his needs is one of the loveliest things in marriage. The wife who knows

, the time will come when it will be sufficient for him to be near her

be no hurried beginning of a second. At least a year should pass before the second little life is allowed

an relation there is no slavery or torture so horrible as coerced, unwilling motherhood, there is no joy and pride greater than that of a woman who is bearing the developing child of a man she adores. It is a serious reflection on our poisoned "civilisation" that

by the general term Eugenics, I shall here say nothing: nor shall I deal with the problems of birth and child-rearing. Many writers have

ition which verges on the abnormal but yet touches the lives of some married people w

loving people, for no apparent reason, seem un

ought untold anguish to many hearts. It is now beginning to be recognised, however, that in a childless union the "fau

yielding of her body to the embrace of another man, which is so generally and so naturally repugnant to a husband. The future possibilities of science here come in. Much interesting research has already been done on the growth of the young of various creatures without the ordinary fertil

part in the heritage of the child, yet in the creation of its spirit he could play a p

r during the months of its development as an embryo within her body, is apt to be greeted with pure scepticism-for

he mother. All are agreed in believing that the spiritual and mental condition and environment of

se being absorbed in the ingested milk." This particular fact is explainable in terms of chemistry; but it seems to me more than rash for anyone in these days of hormones from ductless glands, to deny the possibility of mental states in the mother generating "chemical messengers," which may impress

tal influence neither impossible nor even very improbable.[12] I am convinced th

r intensely, supportingly, and joyously throughout the whole time of the unborn baby's growth. If he reads to her, plays beautiful music or takes her to he

an is impossible without the collaboration of another woman in a manner not outwardly recognised by our laws and customs. Even if this done it is clear that to introduce th

stand upon the statement that we have no right to destroy potential life. But if they would study a little human or animal physiology they would find that not only every celibate, but also every married man incessantly and inevitably wastes myriads of germs (see p. 41)] which had the potentiality of fusion with an ovum, and consequently could hav

onsible. A man swayed by archaic dogma will allow, even coerce, his wife to bear and bring forth an infant annually. Save where the woman is exceptional, each child following so rapidly on its predecessor, sap

or food. A half-starved mother trying to bring up children in the foul air of city slums, loses, as a rule, far more of her family than a comfortable and well-fed woman in the country. Neverth

h-born is 597 per thousand. So that when "Nature" has its way, and twelve children come to sap a woman's vitality, so little strength has she that nearly 60 p

med to throw young men into the arms of prostitution, blush when mention is made of anti-conceptional methods. This false

minished, but increased its population, and has the lowest infant mortality in Europe. While in America, where the outrageous "Comstock Laws" confuse wise scientific prevention with ille

death of all (instead of the natural death of all but one) of the two to six hundred million sperms which enter the woman. Even when a child is allowed to grow in its mother, all these hundreds of millions of sperms are inevitably and naturally destroyed every time the man has an emission, and to add one more to

, one must point out that the whole of civilisation, everything which separates m

t Nature, for it all forms part of

ich lead the race onwards to a higher and fuller completion and the perfecting of its powers, which steer the

l as fit and perfect as they can fashion, so that the body may be the strongest and most beautiful inst