_Equivalent Functions in the Male and Female_
In examining the characteristics of sex in Man under its dual aspect,
male and female, Nature’s primary or rudimentary aim in establishing
sex must be clearly recognised. This aim is the reproduction of the
species.
Pleasure in sexual congress is an incident depending largely on mental
constitution. In the varying ranks of the animal creation it may or may
not exist in connection with reproduction; for it is not essential to
the one all-important dominating fact in nature, viz., parentage.
Reproduction is accomplished in various ways in the widely differing
ranks of living creatures. Man, owing to certain general resemblances
of physical structure, belongs to the higher class of animals, the
Mammalia. In this class the two factors necessary to reproduction,
viz., ova and semen or sperm, exist in separate individuals. The ova
or seed are formed in the ovaries, two small bodies placed within the
pelvis of the female; whilst the sperm or vitalizing fluid is formed
in the testes, two small bodies placed outside the pelvis of the male.
The organs or parts which produce the ova and semen are strictly
analogous in the two sexes. Each part in the female corresponds to a
similar part in the male; and at an early period of existence before
birth it is impossible to determine whether the sex of the embryo is
male or female.
Whilst the male and female organs concerned in the production of semen
and of ova are parallel and in strict correspondence, there is one
striking deficiency in the male structure. The organ essential to the
development of the human being, the organ into which the fertilized
ovum (or human seed) must be brought for growth, is wanting in the male
structure. This deficiency or difference between the sexes produces
important physiological results. The special part which the male has
to perform physically in the all-important reproductive function of
sex finishes with the act of sexual congress, but it continues in
the female. If conception has taken place, the results of this act
become increasingly important. The life of sex, or all that belongs
to the life of the race, as distinguished from the existence of the
individual, becomes continuously and for a long time inseparable
from the woman’s personal existence. Thus, all the relations of sex
form a more important part of the woman’s than of the man’s life.
Another important fact in sexual construction must be noted--viz., the
nervous connections of the sexual organs. All the parts concerned in
reproduction are in close communication with the brain by means of the
nervous system and that enlargement of the spinal cord at the base of
the brain, the medulla oblongata. If the nervous connection between the
generative organs and the brain be severed, no consciousness of those
parts will remain. But whilst the natural nervous connection exists,
the influence of the brain upon those organs is continually felt,
and information as to their changes is sent to the brain. This nerve
connection exists from birth, although the formation of ova and semen
(on which the power of reproduction depends) does not take place until
a later date. Keen nervous sensation may, therefore, be perceived at
any time after birth, although offspring cannot be produced until the
more or less perfect establishment of reproductive power at puberty.
It is of great importance to recognise this fact in the education of
children.
The above general statements respecting the division and correspondence
of the sexual organs in the male and female, and their connection with
the brain through the nervous system, are true of all the Mammalia,
where, as in man, the reproductive power exists in two separate
individuals. When, however, we consider the way in which these
functions act in the work of reproduction, an important difference is
observed between their action in man and in the lower animals. This
difference places man physically in a different and superior category
from the brute creation.
The physiological arrangement of physical sex in man corresponds to the
demands made by the increasing complexity of the sentiment of mental
sex.
As already stated, the two essential features of physical sex are
ovulation and sperm-formation. These two important factors in the
joint work of reproduction are governed by a different rule in human
and in brute life. In man they exist under the rule of continuity and
of self-adjustment--_i.e._, these functions are always existent--but
at the same time they adapt themselves to the higher needs of the
individual. These two laws under which the functions exist--viz., 1st,
continuity of action; 2nd, power of self-adjustment--are distinctive
marks of superior human sexual function. Both are necessitated by the
growth of reason--_i.e._, by a progressive civilization.
This will be understood clearly by dwelling more in detail on the
way in which these two essential parts of reproduction--viz.,
sperm-formation and ovulation--are established in the human race. In
reproduction, the ova which are constantly produced in the female
require to be fertilized by contact with the semen, which is constantly
produced by the male, before they can commence the remarkable series
of changes and transformations which result in the formation of the
embryo, the rudimentary human being.
Semen is a highly vitalized fluid, slowly but constantly secreted or
formed by the male. As is the case with all organized living fluids,
it is filled with rapidly-moving particles (spermatozoa), and its
vitality appears to be in direct ratio to the quantity and activity of
such movement. Motion seems to be inseparably connected with life, and
is distinctive of any highly vitalized fluid. Thus, in the important
and highly organized fluid, the blood, we observe constant motion and
change in the active little bodies with which it is filled.
This quality of great and active vitality appears to be indispensable
to the spermatozoon which in the work of procreation is obliged to
traverse long and winding passages in order to come in contact with the
ovum which is advancing to meet it. An intense energy in the special
act of procreation is needed to overcome the difficulties which may
prevent conception.
It is here necessary to note a common but mischievous fallacy. This
necessary energy on the part of the male, in order to overcome
anatomical difference of structure in sexual congress, is commonly
considered an indication or measurement of the superior force of sexual
attraction or passion in the male.
This superficial judgment is not unnatural, as facts which are patent
to the senses suggest the first crude thought. The chief structures
of the male are external, but they are internal in the female. This
difference of structure first suggests to the boy the meaning of
actions of the lower animals, whilst the girl may grow up to full
womanhood in complete unconsciousness of their signification.
This failure to recognise the equivalent value of internal with
external structure has led to such crude fallacy as a comparison of the
penis with such a vestige as the clitoris, whilst failing to recognise
that vast amount of erectile tissue, mostly internal, in the female,
which is the direct seat of special sexual spasm; such superficial
observation also fails to realize that sexual attraction is not limited
by any isolated physical act.
The true nature of semen remained unknown during ages of physiological
ignorance. It was regarded as the one essential element in
reproduction, planted for growth in the uterus, where it was simply
nourished by the female. The moving particles contained in it were
regarded as animalculæ, and fanciful theories as to these particles
forming the brain and nervous system, etc., of the embryo were
entertained. But all these theories have been swept away by modern
investigation. It is now proved that when the substances of spermatozoa
and ova mingle a new action is set up, and an entirely new substance
created. Life, in the true sense of separate individuality, only begins
with the mingling of the male and female elements, the commencement of
a new existence then taking place when the living ovum fixes itself
in the uterus, and remains there for full growth and final birth. The
substance of spermatozoa and the substance of ova possess no sanctity
of life apart from their union. They are both produced in lavish
abundance, and thrown off from the body in the same way as other unused
secretions are thrown off.
At the periods of menstruation unused ova are discharged. In a similar
manner unused semen is thrown off from time to time, in an entirely
healthy and beneficent way, by spontaneous natural action.
As ovulation in the female and sperm-formation in the male are
equivalent productions, so menstruation in the female and natural
sperm-emission in the male are analogous and beneficial functions.
It is in the arrangement of these two functions in man that the
physical sexual superiority of mankind to the brute creation lies. The
reason of the two distinctive laws which govern human sex is evident.
Thus:
1st. Continuity of action. Procreation in man is not limited to any
special season.[1] Men and women can be governed by reason as to the
time and circumstances when they select one another and commence the
important work of founding a family. The physical organs are maintained
in fit condition for reproduction by these functions of ovulation
and spermation, as servants ready to obey at any time the superior
intelligence of the master Will.
2nd. The power of self-adjustment. These two functions, whilst
maintaining aptitude for procreation in the activities of ovaries and
testes, by occasional spontaneous action secure also the independence
of the individual by such natural action. In the exercise of a
faculty which requires the concurrence of two intelligent beings
endowed with free will and reason, individual independence must be
secured. It would strike at the root of human progress, and convert
society into slavery, if the life and health of an adult could not be
maintained by the self-guidance and independence of the individual.
The natural occasional spontaneous action of the structures concerned
in reproduction secures individual independence whilst awaiting the
beneficial ordinance of marriage.
Thus in the female the constant formation of ova is subordinated to the
needs of individual freedom and to the power of mental self-government
by the function of menstruation, which only in exhausting excess
becomes menorrhœa. In the male the slower secretion of semen is adapted
to the same individual freedom and power of self-control by the natural
function of sperm-emission, which only in exhausting excess becomes
spermatorrhœa.
As menstruation in the female is the means adopted by our organization
for securing both the permanent integrity of the various essential
generative structures and their relief from any excess of vitality, so
sperm-emission is the natural relief and independent outlet of that
steady action of the generative organs in the male, which secures
through adult life the constant aptitude for reproduction distinctive
of the human race. The parallel in the two sexes is exact. Menstruation
and sperm-emission are the natural healthy actions of self-balance,
established by the economy for preserving the mastership of each
individual over her or his own nature. At the same time the integrity
of the structure is maintained by the steady action of these two
functions of ovulation and spermation. These natural functions only
degenerate into states of disease through ignorance of physiological
law and faulty hygienic conditions on the one hand, or through impure
thoughts and bad habits acting through the nervous system on the
other. When these natural functions are either injured or unduly
stimulated through the brain and nervous system, then only do they
become diseased, producing menorrhœa or leucorrhœa in the female, and
spermatorrhœa in the male.
It is impossible to overrate the wide importance of this law of
self-adjustment, under which human function is carried on. The abuses
of sex and the misunderstanding of actual facts, which have led to
widespread error on this subject, will be dwelt on later. Every parent,
however, who has been able to fulfil the true parental relationship to
the child will realize the beneficence of this law. The obligatory and
premature marriage of daughters, so largely the custom abroad, is one
result of error on this subject. A still more dangerous error is the
cruel advice sometimes given to a young man to degrade a woman, and
sin against his own higher nature by taking a mistress or resorting to
harlots.
I have often been consulted by anxious mothers who have observed
or been told by their boys of fourteen or fifteen that an unusual
discharge had taken place. It is of vital importance to the parent to
know that such action is as natural and healthy in the growing lad as
in the growing girl, but that in both it is a time requiring guidance,
both moral and physical. Respectful, earnest words of hygienic counsel,
including mind and body, are indispensable at this critical time of
youth. Parents, particularly mothers, live too often in fatal ignorance
of the conditions of sexual health and disease in their children. My
advice is constantly asked in such cases as the following: A careful
mother, who had brought up her son, a strong and healthy young man, to
the age of twenty, learned from him of this natural sign of vitality,
which both supposed to indicate disease! It was with pain and dismay
that she replied to his confidence, ‘Alas! then, my son, I fear you
must consult a doctor.’ The joyful light of gratitude and renewed hope
with which she learned the truth on this important subject--viz., that
the occasional spontaneous action of the organs (not voluntarily forced
by corrupt thought and action) is natural and beneficial--will not be
easily forgotten. It was like the gleam of transcendent joy which I
have seen illuminate the face of a young mother at the shrill cry of
her first-born infant.
The measureless evil caused, not only by their ignorance, but by the
false information given to mothers, is illustrated by the inquiry made
of a friend of mine, a clergyman, by an intelligent French mother about
to move to Paris with her son. This lady, sensible and even pious,
wrote to the clergyman to inquire ‘if providing a mistress for her son
would be very costly in Paris.’ She had accepted as a fact what she had
been taught, viz., that no young man who could not marry early could
remain healthy without resorting to vice.
From lack of true knowledge of the natural facts of their own physical
organization, young men are often terrified into a resort to quacks,
who impose on their ignorance. The young also of both sexes may be
tempted into bad habits of self-abuse at the outset of this new
life, from being unacquainted with the evils and dangers of vicious
indulgence.
It is the grave parental duty of both father and mother to be able to
direct a child at its first entrance into adult life. At an age varying
with climate, race, and temperament, the young man as well as the young
woman will experience the healthy discharge, which is a sign that the
gradual development of the reproductive organs has attained its final
stage. In both its sudden appearance often produces fright; in both
it may appear once, with long intervals of recurrence. In the girl it
tends gradually (for important natural reasons) to the establishment
of a frequent and regularly returning function. In the young man and
in the continent unmarried adult, the natural action of these organs
is of far less frequent recurrence; it may be of slow and uncertain
return, dependent greatly upon the occupation of the mind and general
physical state of the individual. In the natural healthy young man,
the occasional return of this function, even with a certain degree of
periodicity, is a valuable aid to adult self-government.
It is impossible to reprobate too strongly the false views of
physiology held by those who make no distinction between the natural
healthy growth of these functions and their abuse. No Christian
physiologist whose observation of facts is enlightened by a knowledge
of the possibility of moral growth can commit so fatal an error. It
is an insult to the male nature to infer that it is inferior to the
female nature because it does not fully possess the power of individual
self-balance. The assertion that one human being is dependent on the
degradation of another human being for the maintenance of personal
health is contradicted by physiological facts as well as social
experience.
The greater complication and elaboration of sexual structure and
function belonging to the female nature is due to the more important
share given to woman in the work of parentage. The constant production
in the female of living germs (ova), which require only a passing
act of stimulation by the male to enter into a state of active and
astonishingly rapid growth; the unique change of the small uterus into
an enormous and powerful structure, capable of containing a perfect
child, and sending it forth by tremendous efforts into the outer world;
the changes in all the surrounding organs and tissues necessitated by
the accomplishment of such a remarkable work in the short space of nine
months; and the subjection of this great physical work to the law of
individual freedom and perfection, are facts which show the superior
complication and importance of the female sexual organization. The more
elaborate processes of menstruation, as compared with the lesser work
of sperm-emission, show the greater complication of the organs to be
kept in good working order in the female than in the male.
So extensive and important are the physical structures that must be
kept in readiness for use in the mothers of the race, that their action
is more withdrawn from the dominion of the will than is the case with
men. In relation to the male, it is well known that the secretion
of semen is very much controlled by the mental condition of the
individual. Thus many a young man during keen nervous excitement (or
during the strain of examinations) becomes alarmed by the appearance of
unusual action never before noticed.
It is a fact to be carefully noted that sufficient healthy action to
insure reproductive aptitude is always maintained in the secreting
organs throughout adult life, quite independently of the will. Nature
never allows the male, any more than the female, to become impotent
through abeyance of function. No such fear need ever disturb the
mind. The utmost devotion to intellectual life, to lofty thought,
to beneficent action, never injures the procreative power, which
always remains intact, capable of its special faculty throughout the
virile age. But the active exercise of the intellectual and moral
faculties has remarkable power of diminishing the formation of semen,
and limiting the necessity of its natural removal, the demand for
such relief becoming rarer under ennobling and healthy influences.
As Dr. Acton remarks, ‘sexual distress affects particularly the
_semi-continent_--those who indeed see the better course and approve
of it, but follow the worse; who, without the recklessness of the
hardened or the strength of the pure, endure at once the sufferings of
self-denial and the remorse of self-indulgence.’[2]
The healthy limitation of sexual secretion in men sets free a vast
store of nervous force for employment in intellectual and active
practical pursuits. The amount of nervous energy expended by the male
in the temporary act of sexual congress is very great, out of all
apparent proportion to its physical results, and is an act not to be
too often repeated. In the fully matured and strong adult the nature
is adapted to such occasional expenditure, but it is a serious evil
to the growing or unconsolidated nature. Even in strong adult life
there is a great loss of social power through the squandering of adult
energy, which results from any unnatural stimulus given to the appetite
of sex in the male. The barbarous custom of polygamy, the degrading
habit of promiscuous intercourse, selfish license in marriage, and all
artificial excitements which give undue stimulus to the passion of sex,
divert an immeasurable amount of mental and moral force from the great
work of human advancement.
The control possessed so largely by the male over the physical
function of sperm-formation is not possessed by the female over the
corresponding function of ovulation. In the female, Nature apparently
cannot venture to subordinate the simple physical functions of sex
to the will, to as great an extent as in the male. A more unyielding
rule is needed in these physical activities, because the work to be
accomplished for the race by the female is so much more elaborate and
long continued. A greater amount of varied action in the complicated
organs is necessitated in order to maintain their adult aptitude. The
function of ovulation (formation of ova) is not increased or diminished
by the will, or by the dwelling of the mind upon sexual objects, at all
to the same extent that spermation (formation of sperm) may be affected
by the same mental action. Ovulation, and its natural accompaniment,
menstruation, is much more of a necessary fixed quantity than
spermation and its natural accompaniment, sperm-emission.[3]
It is thus seen that the laws guiding the human sexual functions as
established by Creative Power are as conducive to health, and as
consistent with the freedom and perfection of human growth, in one sex
as in the other. Each sex, obeying the Governing Law, is created to
help, not destroy the other. The general outline of arrangement is the
same in each, viz., power of mental and physical self-balance, strictly
guarded potency, and a certain degree of periodicity.
I repeat that parents, and especially mothers, should be acquainted
with the truths of physiology. There is in the pure sentiment of
maternity a special Divine gift of unselfishness and profound devotion
to the well-being of husband and children. This God-given power enables
a wife and mother to comprehend and apply this knowledge with the
impersonality of wisdom. The awful aberrations of our sexual nature
excite a deep pity which inevitably seeks for a remedy. When this
special aptitude given to women by the power of maternity is fully
realized, the enlarged intelligence of mothers will be welcomed as the
brightest harbinger of sexual regeneration.