SEX IN THE ADOLESCENT FEMALE
(FROM PUBERTY TO MATURITY)
Adolescence in the girl is the period when she develops into a woman.
It is that stage in female life embraced between the ages of twelve or
fourteen and twenty-one years. Elasticity of body, a clear complexion,
and a happy control of her feelings should mark the young girl at this
time, if she has been so fortunate as to escape the dangers and
baneful influences of childhood and infancy. Her numerous bodily
functions should be well performed. Thus constituted she should be in
a condition to take up her coming struggle with the world, and the sex
problem it will present.
PUBERTY
It has been noticed that in the case of girls, puberty usually occurs
earlier in brunettes than in blondes. In general, it makes its
appearance earlier in those of a nervous or bilio-nervous temperament
than in those whose temperament is phlegmatic or lymphatic. In the
United States fourteen and a half years is the usual age of puberty in
girls. In tropical lands, however, it is not uncommon for a girl to be
a mother at twelve. Country girls (and boys) usually mature several
months or a year later than those living in cities. Too early a
puberty in girls may well arouse concern. It usually indicates some
inherent constitutional weakness. Premature puberty is often
associated with premature decay.
THE SIGNS AND CHANGES OF PUBERTY
In the girl the sign of puberty is the growth of hair about the pubes,
private organs and armpits. Her whole frame remains more slender than
in the male. Muscles and joints are less prominent, limbs more rounded
and tapering. Internal and external organs undergo rapid enlargement,
locally. The _mammae_ (the breasts) enlarge, the ovaries dilate, and a
periodical uteral discharge (menstruation) is established.
MENSTRUATION
No young girl should feel alarmed if, owing to the negligence of her
parents or guardians to prepare her, she is surprised by this first
flow from the genital organs. Puberty is the proper time for the
appearance of menstruation. This is the periodical development and
discharge of an ovule (one or more) by the female, accompanied by the
discharge of a fluid, known as menses or catamenia. Menstruation, in
general good health, should occur about every twenty-eight days, or
once in four weeks. This rule, however, is subject to great variation.
Menstruation continues from puberty to about the forty-fifth year,
which usually marks the _menopause_, or "change of life." When it
disappears a woman is no longer capable of bearing children. Her
period of fertility has passed. In rare cases menstruation has stopped
at 35, or lasted till 60.
HINTS FOR OBSERVANCE DURING MENSTRUATION
When the period arrives a girl or woman has a feeling of discomfort
and lassitude, there is a sense of weight, and a disclination for
society. Menstruation should not, however, be regarded as a nuisance;
a girl's friends respect her most when she is "unwell." She should
keep more than usually quiet while the flow continues, which it will
do for a few days. Also, she should avoid all unnecessary fatigue,
exposure to wet or to extremes of temperature. Some girls are guilty
of the crime of trying to arrest the menstruation flow, and resorting
to methods of stopping it. Why? In order to attend a dance or pleasure
excursion! Lives have been lost by thus suppressing the monthly flux.
Mothers should instruct their daughters when the menses are apt to
begin, and what their function is. During menstruation great care must
be taken in using water internally. A chill is sufficient to arrest
the flow. If menstruation does not establish itself in a healthy or
normal manner at the proper time, consult a physician in order to
remove this abnormal condition. Any disturbance of the delicate
menstrual functions during the period, by constrained positions,
muscular effort, brain work and mental or physical excitement, is apt
to have serious consequences.
CONTINENCE AND THE YOUNG ADOLESCENT GIRL
Continence is, as a rule more easily observed by the adolescent girl
than by the adolescent youth. Ordinarily the normal young girl has no
_undue_ sexual propensities, amorous thoughts or feelings. Though she
is exposed to the danger of meeting other girls who may be lewd in
thought and speech, in the houses of friends or at school, she is not
apt to be carried away by their example. Yet even a good, pure-minded
young girl may be debauched. Especially during adolescence, the easy
observance of natural continence depends greatly on the proper
functioning of the feminine genital organs. These may be easily
disturbed. The syringe used for injections, for so-called purposes of
cleanliness, is in reality a danger. The inner organs are
self-cleansing. Water or other fluids cast into them disorder the
mucous follicles, and dry up their secretions, preventing the flowing
out of some of Nature's necessities. A daily washing of the inner
organs for a long period with water also produces chronic leucorrhea.
WHY YOUNG GIRLS FALL
Lack of proper early training, abnormal sex instincts, weak good
nature, poverty, all may be responsible for a young girl's moral
downfall. As a general thing, right home training and home
environment, and sane sex education will prevent the normally good
girl from going wrong. It should be remembered, though, that a
naturally more gentle and yielding disposition may easily lead her
into temptation. Girls who are sentimentally inclined should beware of
giving way to advances on the part of young men which have only one
object in view: the gratification of their animal passion.
The holding of hands and similar innocent beginnings often pave the
way for more familiar caresses. Passionate kisses--the promiscuous
kiss, by the way, may be the carrier of that dread infection,
syphilis--violently awaken a young girl's sex instincts. The fact is
that many innocent girls idealize their seducers. They believe their
lying promises, actually come to love them, and think that in
gratifying their inflamed desires, they are giving a proof of the
depth and purity of their own affection.
Here, as in the case of the young man, self-control should be the
first thing cultivated. And self-control should be made doubly sure by
never permitting one of the opposite sex to show undue familiarity.
Many a seemingly innocent flirtation, begun with a kiss, has ended in
shame and disgrace, in loss of social standing and position, venereal
disease, or even death. The pure-minded and innocent girl often
becomes a victim of her ignorance of the consequences entailed by
giving in to the desires of some male companion. _The girl who has a
knowledge of sex facts is less apt to be taken advantage of in this
manner._
MODERN CONDITIONS WHICH ENCOURAGE IMMORALITY
_Excessive Freedom._--The excessive freedom granted the young girl,
especially since the World War, must be held responsible for a great
increase in familiarity between the adolescent youth of both sexes.
Many young girls of the "flapper" type, in particular, are victims of
these conditions of unrestrained sex association. Sex precocity is
furthered in coeducational colleges, in the high school and the home.
Adolescents of both sexes too often are practically unhampered in
their comings and goings, their words and actions. The surreptitious
pocket flask, filled with "hooch," is often a feature of social
parties, dances and affairs frequented by young people. Girls and boys
drink together, and as alcohol weakens moral resistance in the one
case, and stimulates desire in the other, deplorable consequences
naturally result. In the United States the number of girls "sent home"
from colleges, and of high-school girls being privately treated by
physicians to save them from disgrace, is incredibly large.
Parents who do not control the social activities of their daughters,
who permit them to spend their evenings away from home with only a
general idea of what they are doing or whom they are meeting, need not
be surprised if their morals are undermined.
_The Auto._--The advent of the automobile is responsible for an easy
and convenient manner of satisfying precociously aroused sex instincts
in young girls and boys. Often, unconscientious pleasure-seekers roam
the roads in their auto. They accost girls who are walking and offer
them a "lift." When the latter refuse to gratify their desires they
are often beaten and flung from the car. The daily press has given
such publicity to this civilized form of "head hunting," that it is
difficult to sympathize with girls who are thus treated. They cannot
help but know that in nine cases out of ten, a stranger who invites
them to a ride, who "picks" them up, does so with the definite purpose
already mentioned in view.
_Poverty._--Poverty, too, plays a large part in driving young girls
into a life of vice. In all our large cities there are hundreds of
young women who earn hardly enough to buy food and fuel and pay for
the rent of a room in a cheap lodging house. Feminine youth longs for
dress, for company, for entertainment. It is easy enough to find a
"gentleman friend" who will provide all three, in exchange for
"companionship." So the bargain is struck. These conditions exist in a
hundred and one occupations. A young woman may go to a large city as
pure as snow, but finding no lucrative employment, lonely and
despondent, she is led to take her first step on the downward path.
Soon daily contact with vice removes abhorrence to it. Familiarity
makes it habitual, and another life is ruined. The heartless moral
code of the cynical young pleasure-seeking male is summed up in the
cant phrase anent women: "Find, ... and forget!" It is these girls,
who are victimized by their lack of self-restraint or moral principle,
their ignorance or weakness, who make possible the application of such
a maxim.
VIRGINITY
Both mental and physical purity are rightfully required of the young
girl about to marry. How shall she acquire and maintain this desirable
state of purity? The process is a simple one. _She must let a
knowledge of the true hygienic and moral laws of her sex guide her in
her relations with men._ She must cultivate clean thought on a basis
of physical cleanliness. She need not be ignorant to be pure. Men she
should study carefully. She should not allow them to sit with their
arm about her waist, to hold her hand, to kiss her. No approach nor
touch beyond what the best social observance sanctions should be
permitted. Even the tendernesses and familiarities of courtship should
be restrained. An engagement does not necessarily culminate in a
marriage, and once the foot has slipped on virtue's path the error
cannot be recalled. These considerations, together with those adduced
in the preceding section, "Why Young Girls Fall," are well worth
taking to heart by every young woman who wishes to approach matrimony
in the right and proper way.