Sex At Choice

Part 1

Sex at Choice

Sex at Choice

By Mrs. Monteith Erskine

With an Introduction by James Monteith Erskine M.P. for the St. George’s Division of Westminster

G. P. Putnam’s Sons New York & London The Knickerbocker Press 1925

Copyright, 1925 by Cicely Erskine

Made in the United States of America

PREFACE

This book, written by a woman for women, is the result of twenty-five years’ continuous study of the causes of Sex-determination and of the most feasible method of controlling it. It represents also the work of a life-time devoted to investigation into every symptom or indication, however minute or apparently insignificant, manifested in the pregnancy of male offspring as distinct from that of female.

This research, mainly practical and clinical, was undertaken as a result of the close attention which, for some years, I had devoted to all matters connected with the health of young girls.

At an early age I came to realise the fundamental truth of the alternate action of “sides.” I use this word advisedly, because in those days I knew no other. It goes without saying that this fact was brought to my notice solely by the physical disabilities from which many girls suffer, and by the nature of the treatment which brought them relief. But, over and above this, the recognition of this truth proved, in my case, to be the key to the ultimate conclusions upon which my whole theory is based.

The study of anatomy and physiology attracted me so deeply, whilst I was yet a schoolgirl at Geneva, that it led me to further pursuit along the lines of medical enquiry. It was about this time that, by the merest chance, certain works expounding theories on sex-causation of various biologists in France and Germany came under my notice, and these I read and studied with the keenest interest.

Here it may be well to answer the constantly repeated question, “What on earth possessed you, at such an early age, to take up a subject of a nature so peculiar or, at any rate, controversial?” It must be remembered that, in the evolution of a certain train of thought, the mind is very apt to be affected by an exceptional combination of circumstances. In my own case a keen sense of the wrong which I had suffered from the start, by being born a girl where a boy was desired, had led me to vague doubts and questionings in early childhood. All this, undoubtedly, helped to sow within me the seeds of a bitter dissatisfaction with prevailing conditions. I despised the slipshod methods of biological ignorance, and justified the saying, the truth of which has so often been proved before, that “All striving towards betterment is the fruit of discontent.”

The helplessness of women in respect of any power to determine the sex of their offspring I regarded as a gross injustice and as a palpable reflection on the progress of science; not for one moment did I regard it as really due to the haphazard working of Dame Nature in her least kindly moods.

Then it was that the idea filtered slowly through my brain that it might well be a woman who alone could solve the problem. Who but a woman could have the insight, born of personal experience, the patience, produced by the physical disability of her sex, the opportunity, offered by the sympathy of her fellows, or the will, created by a burning desire to help womankind, to undertake the task of unravelling the mystery?

And so I set to work to fathom the sex-theories hitherto advanced. Most of them I speedily discarded as entirely futile and incompatible with the rôle of woman as the sole determining factor of the sexes. For I realised that even as ten lunar months are needed for the formation and perfection of the child before it is born, so also the mathematical relation of twenty-eight days or one lunar month must be applied to the periods of fertilisation in the human species. Hence, in the scientific use of these twenty-eight days must lie the predominant part of the secret of pre-determination. It was at this point that the old question “Before or After?” became a matter of very special interest and a vital object of study.

Among competing theories there were, however, several which appeared to present material for speculation of some practical value and seemed worth testing in the light of my own observations. The results of such tests were methodically compiled in statistical form, having regard to the marked inclination of certain parents to procreate offspring of one or the other sex only. Examples were selected and added to, hundred by hundred, culled from many countries, and they represented in a marked degree distinct conditions appearing in the pregnancies of women according to the sex of the children they happened to bear.

The alternatives in connection with the time-honoured theory of “Lateral Decubitus,” which means the use of position to right or left as an assistance to sex-determination, were duly explored. And it must be borne in mind, as regards the belief of the right side being male and the left female, that this seems to have been widely accepted before any definite conclusions as to sex-theory were ever mooted. The words of the first Chapter of Genesis “Male and Female created He them,” appeared to have been applied to the right or left sides of woman ever since the days of Hippocrates. The evidence of tradition, at any rate, could be cited overwhelmingly in support of it.

Again the modern suggestion that “each organ works in shifts,” was another principle of equal significance, which impressed itself upon me in the early stages of my inquiries, and I soon came to some comprehension of the alternate working of the ovaries.

During this period of my life I can say that no single instance of future maternity, still less of imminent motherhood, was discussed in my hearing, in respect to the progress and result of which I did not collect data and information. Perhaps it was owing to my keen interest in the physical sufferings of women, and my exceptional devotion to the subject of the upbringing of infants, that I so easily gained the confidence of every mother I met. The intimate details then disclosed, in exchange for the genuine sympathy I evinced in their maladies, real or even imaginary, proved of immeasurable value in my researches. Every detail of gestation and parturition was faithfully recorded, and this collection of notes became of incalculable value in helping me to establish my conclusion.

I must not forget the debt I owe to certain medical friends, who, aware of my desire for knowledge, and thinking I wished to become, in course of time, a physician, were kind enough to help me to acquire such scientific learning as might prove useful to my career.

Then came marriage with its attendant responsibilities. Five children were born to me alive and healthy, and they proved to be, as I desired, one girl and four boys. I suffered no lack of varied experiences, and took every advantage offered by all those accidental occurrences and disabilities that few mothers of large families entirely escape. Every mishap, every trouble, became a step in the progress of my ever-widening investigation.

Eventually, as the result of much valuable and varied experience, I obtained a record of personal symptoms which might fairly claim to be unique. To these I added the data collected from other similar cases I had observed, my opportunities of observation having rapidly increased as I displayed, with greater assurance, the zeal that possessed me for more, and yet more, clinical experience and evidence. I think that an exceptionally intuitive and even hypersensitive temperament, combined with a capacity for patient plodding, helped me, as did also my complete freedom from all the restraint of a hide-bound tradition, which in so many cases hampers the outlook of the orthodox medical student.

It was in July, 1908, that, acting on the kindly advice of an eminent gynæcologist, I deposited with my bankers the actual formula which I had tested for the practical application of my theory, and which I had, in many cases, used to my own complete satisfaction. I took this step in order that I might prevent any doubt arising in later years over my claim of priority. But even then my formula was not as complete as I wished it to be. Since that time I have made good progress in many directions, and more especially in the problem of safe-guarding from female issue those women who are not entirely normal, in that the action of their left ovary does not correspond with the laws that hold for the absolutely healthy woman.

Since 1909, people from many countries have consulted me about their future offspring. Letters of acknowledgment and testimony to the efficacy of my plans have flowed in from every part of the world.

It has been objected by some that parts of my theory have the flavour of an “old wives’ tale.” There is, indeed, some truth in this. But I see nothing to be ashamed of in the fact that my experience has tallied with that of scores of observant old ladies in past generations. Our grandmothers lived so simply and so close to nature that they were admirably equipped for observation. They made full use of the opportunities offered them by the large families that they bore and reared, unaided and unaffected by the artificialities of civilisation. Then, as the years rolled by, the wisdom they had collected was passed on from mother to daughter, and to daughter-in-law, to survive triumphantly the passing ridicule hurled at them by cynics of all times.

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