Part 15

Secondly, Young persons, even though with very limited means, would nevertheless marry, and by not becoming parents, be enabled, unitedly, to husband their resources, with the view to the bettering their condition pecuniarily; in the meantime, and in the days of their youth, enjoying all those social endearments which each sex finds in the society of the other, where reciprocity of views, interests, and feelings exists. So too, those in middling circumstances would marry early, merely deferring an increase of family until they will have established themselves in some business, ere the constant accumulating expenses of an increasing family encroach upon, or eat up their small capital, the immediate incurrence of which thus early would, perhaps, for ever destroy the means for the comfortable provision of themselves, as also the future welfare of their children.

Physiologically. By inducing early marriages, the dire evils arising from promiscuous sexual intercourse with the tainted or diseased, will gradually disappear, and in a generation or two we would find springing up, in the place of the present sickly, puny race, a healthy, robust, and pure generation.

In regard to the morality of preventing conception it is contended that everything which tends to the amelioration of mankind, to improve their condition physically, morally, and socially, or equalize their condition pecuniarily, cannot be immoral. That the instinct of reproduction should be, like our other appetites and passions, subject to the control of reason,—that when the gratification of this instinct results in evil effects either to ourselves or to our offspring, or even to society—if such evil can be prevented, it is the obligation of morality that it should be.

It is contended, then, that the use of a preventive to conception will make men and women rational, reflecting, thinking beings, regardful alike of their own welfare and the welfare of their offspring. That it will banish poverty, vice and profligacy, by enabling the poor to improve their pecuniary condition and thus engendering habits of frugality, reflection and economy, which the prospect of future competency is so calculated to inspire. Vice so often springing from despair and hopeless poverty will disappear, because the children, by reason of the competence and moral structure of the parents, will not in infancy be thrust upon the world to mingle with the depraved and the licentious. Sexual profligacy and licentiousness will be checked, as early marriages become more prevalent and universal, as there then will exist no reasons as now, why two persons, attached to each other, should not marry, refraining merely from becoming parents. Dishonorable advances therefore would be spurned, seductions thus have no existence, and prostitution, the offspring of seduction, would be unknown, and even the ravages of that disease, engendered by promiscuous sexual intercourse, now carrying off its tens of thousands, transmitting its pestiferous poison to thousands yet unborn, would entirely disappear.

The able author thus concludes his views:

“And now let my readers pause. Let them review the various arguments I have placed before them. Let them reflect how intimately the instinct of which I treat is connected with the social welfare of society. Let them bear in mind, that just in proportion to its social influence, is it important that we should know how to control and govern it; that when we obtain such control, we may save ourselves—and, what we ought to prize much more highly, may save our companions and our offspring, from suffering or misery; that, by such knowledge, the young may form virtuous connexions, instead of becoming profligates or ascetics; that, by it, early marriage is deprived of its heaviest consequences, and seduction of its sharpest sting; that, by it, man may be saved from moral ruin, and woman from desolating dishonor; that by it the first pure affections may be soothed and satisfied, instead of being thwarted or destroyed—let them call to mind all this, and let them say, whether the possession of such control be not a blessing to man.

“As to the cry which prejudice may raise against it as being unnatural, it is just as unnatural (and no more so) as to refrain, in a sultry summer’s day, from drinking, perhaps, more than a pint of water at a draught, which prudence tells us is enough, while inclination would bid us drink a quart. All thwarting of any human wish or impulse may, in one sense, be called unnatural; it is not, however, ofttimes the less prudent and proper on that account.”

As to the practical efficacy of this preventive, the experience of France, where it is universally practised, might suffice in proof. We know, at this moment, several married persons who have told us, that, after having had as many children as they thought prudent, they had for years employed it with perfect success. For the satisfaction of our readers, we will select some instances.

A few weeks since, a respectable and very intelligent father of a family, about thirty-five years of age, who resides west of the mountains, called at our office. Conversation turned on the present subject, and we expressed to him our conviction that this preventive was effectual. He told us he could speak from personal experience. He had married young, and soon had three children. These he could support in comfort, without running into debt or difficulty; but, the price of produce sinking in his neighborhood, there did not appear a fair prospect of supporting a large family. In consequence, he and his wife determined to limit their offspring to three. They have accordingly used it for seven or eight years; have had no more children; and have been rewarded for their prudence by finding their situation and prospects improving every year.

The next communication from which we shall copy is from a young man of excellent character, living in a neighboring state, and now one of the conductors of a popular periodical. After suggesting to us the propriety of re-publishing some English works now out of print, he proceeds as follows:

“Had I not been addressing you upon another subject, I should not have ventured to obtrude on you my small need of approbation; but I cannot let slip this opportunity of endeavoring to express how much I feel indebted to you for its publication.

“To know how I am so indebted, it is necessary you should also know something of my situation in life; and when it is described, it is perhaps a description of the situation of two-thirds of the journeymen mechanics of this country.

“I have been married nearly three years, and am the father of two children. Having nothing to depend upon but my own industry, you will readily acknowledge that I had reason to look forward with at least some degree of disquietude to the prospect of an increasing family and reduced wages: apparently the inevitable lot of the generality of working men.

“I had apparently nothing left but to let matters take their own course, when your valuable work made its appearance.

“I read it; and a new scene of existence seemed to open before me. I found myself, in this all-important matter, a free agent, and, in a degree, the arbiter of my own destiny. I could have said to you as Selim said to Hassan,—‘

‘Thou’st hew’d a mountain’s weight from off my heart.’

My visions of poverty and future distress vanished; the present seemed gilded with new charms, and the future appeared no longer to be dreaded. But you can better imagine, than I describe, the revolution of my feelings.

“I have since endeavored to circulate this book as widely as my limited opportunities permit, and shall continue to do so, believing it to be the most useful work that has made its appearance.”

The next extract, from an inhabitant of Pennsylvania, we have selected chiefly as it furnishes a beautiful, and, alas! a rare, example, of that parental conscientiousness which scruples to impart existence where it cannot also impart the conditions necessary to render that existence happy. In this view, the control in question is indeed all-important. Were such virtue as this cultivated in mankind generally, how soon might the very seeds of disease die out among us, instead of bearing, as now, their poison-fruit from generation to generation! and how far might human beings, in succeeding ages, surpass their forefathers in strength, in health, and in beauty!

This view of the subject is to the physiologist, to the philosopher, to every friend of human improvement, a most interesting one. ‘So long,’ to use the words of an eloquent lecturer, ‘as the tainted stream is unhesitatingly transmitted through the channel of nature, from parent to offspring, so long will the text be verified which “visits the sins of the fathers on the children, even to the third and fourth generation.”’ And so long, we would add, will mankind—wise and successful whenever there is question of improving the animal races—be blind in perceiving, and listless in securing, that far nobler object, the physical, and thereby—in a measure—the mental and moral improvement of our own.

Here is the extract which led to these remarks:—

“I was born of poor parents, and early left an orphan. When of age, though my circumstances promised poorly for the support of a family, I desired to marry, knowing that a good wife would greatly add to my happiness. The preventive spoken of in your book presented itself to my mind, and for seven years that I have now been married, it has been used. I was successful in business, and acquired the means of maintaining a family; but still I have been unwilling, because my constitution is such a one as I think a parent ought not to transmit to his offspring. I prefer not to give birth to sentient beings, unless I can give them those advantages, physical as well as moral and intellectual, which are essential to human happiness.”

From the letter of an aged French gentleman, who holds a public office in the western country, I translate the following; and I would to heaven that every young man and woman in these United States could read it:

“I have read your work with much interest; and desire that it may have a wide circulation and that its recommendations may be adopted in practice. If you publish another edition, I could wish that you would add a piece of advice of the greatest importance, especially to young married persons. Many women are ignorant, that, in the gratification of the re-productive instinct, the exhaustion to the man is much greater than to the woman; a fact most important to be known, the ignorance of which has caused more than one husband to forfeit his health, nay, his life. Tissot tells us, that the loss by an ounce of semen is equal to that by forty ounces of blood; and that, in the case of the healthiest man, nature does not demand connexion oftener than once a month.

“How many young spouses, loving their husbands tenderly and disinterestedly, if they were but informed of these facts, would watch over and preserve their partners’ healths, instead of exciting them to over-indulgence.”—Another extract.

“A member of the Society of Friends, from the country, called at our office; he informed me that he had been married twenty years, had six children, and would probably have had twice as many, but for the preventive, which he found in every instance efficacious. By this means he made an interval of two or three years between the births of each of his children. Having at last a family of six, his wife earnestly desired to have no more; and on one occasion, when the preventive was neglected to be used, she shed tears at the prospect of again becoming pregnant. He said he knew, in his own neighborhood, several married women who were rendered miserable on account of their continued pregnancy, and would have given anything in the world to escape, but knew not how.”

Our readers may implicitly depend on the accuracy of the facts we have stated. Though in the present state of public opinion we may not, for obvious reasons, give names in proof.

That most practical of philosophers, Franklin, interprets chastity to mean, the regulated and strictly temperate satisfaction, without injury to others, of those desires which are natural to all healthy adult beings. In this sense, chastity is the first of virtues, and one most rarely practised, either by young men or by married persons, even when the latter most scrupulously conform to the letter of the law.