resort to what is physiologically a worse crime against
nature—self-excitation. This yielded to in boyhood sometimes makes of
the young man a woman pursuer, but probably more often a woman hater;
while, on the other hand, it is often the last and final resort of
the old and broken-down debauchee. In either event the effect upon
the constitution is detrimental in the extreme. It is customary, but
still a grave error, to preserve silence upon this subject. “But,”
to apply to it the brave words of my friend Dr. Shrady, of New
York, when discussing prostitution, “notwithstanding our prejudices
of education, agitation will here, as in the kindred question of
pre-natal infanticide, finally culminate in reform.”[25] If the
subject is decided, as I believe will be the case, to be of the
importance that is claimed by every philosophical physician who has
looked into the matter, a voice will go out into every corner of the
land, caught up and re-echoed by all the medical men thereof, that
will cause those who care either for their souls or their bodies, to
pause and tremble.
I would not exaggerate this matter—I would not indorse that
empiricism in medicine which seeks to obtain gain through awakening
ungrounded fears, or imply that I believe that those who have
occasionally gone astray are necessarily incurably diseased, or their
souls irretrievably lost. On the contrary, it is my opinion, already
stated, that just as there is more joy in heaven over the repentant
sinner than over those who wandered not, so those who have learned
by bitter experience often make, here below, the better men. I have
more than once in this essay drawn from the language of Dr. Ware, an
old man, of widely-extended experience, close habits of observation,
a thoughtful mind, and of abounding charity for those who had erred.
There is no one among the wide circle of medical men who were on
terms of personal acquaintance with this distinguished member of our
profession who will not acknowledge that the following sketch is far
from being overdrawn:—
“There is another form of sensuality, far more common among the
young, it is to be feared, than that of which we have been speaking,
and equally demanding notice—solitary indulgence. This is resorted
to from different motives. With many there is no opportunity for the
natural gratification of their appetites; some are deterred from such
gratification by the fear of discovery, regard for character, or a
dread of disease; others there are whose consciences revolt at the
idea of licentious intercourse, who yet addict themselves to this
practice with the idea that there is in it less of criminality. It
is to be apprehended, however, that its commencement can usually
be traced to a period of life when no such causes can have been in
operation. It is begun from imitation, and taught by example, long
before the thoughts are likely to have been exercised, with regard
either to its dangers or its criminality.
“The prevalence of this vice among boys, there is great reason
to believe, has very much to do with the great amount of illicit
indulgence which exists among young men. The one bears the same
relation to the other, in a certain sense, that moderate drinking
does to intemperance. It prepares the way, it excites the appetite,
it debauches the imagination. There is little doubt that it
is often, if not commonly, begun at a period of life when the
natural appetite does not, and should not, exist. It is solicited,
prematurely developed; it is almost created. On every account,
then, this practice in the young demands especial notice. It is the
great corrupter of the morals of our youth, as well as a frequent
destroyer of their health and constitution. Could it be arrested,
the task of preventing the more open form of licentiousness would
be comparatively easy; for it creates and establishes, at a very
early age, a strong physical propensity, an animal want, of the most
imperious nature, which, like the longing of the intemperate man, it
is almost beyond human power to overcome. The brute impulse becomes a
habit of nearly irresistible force before the reason is instructed
as to its injurious influence on the health, or the conscience
awakened as to its true character as a sin.
“The deleterious, the sometimes appalling consequences of this vice
upon the health, the constitution, the mind itself, are some of the
common matters of medical observation. The victims of it should know
what these consequences are; for to be acquainted with the tremendous
evils it entails may assist them in the work of resistance. These
consequences are various in degree and in permanency according to
the extent to which the indulgence is carried, and also according to
the constitution of different individuals. But there is probably no
extent which is not in some degree injurious.
“Among the effects of this habit, in ordinary cases, we notice an
impaired nutrition of the body; a diminution of the rotundity which
belongs to childhood and youth; a general lassitude and languor,
with weakness of the limbs and back; indisposition and incapacity
for study or labor; dulness of apprehension; a deficient power
of attention; dizziness; headaches; pains in the sides, back, and
limbs; affections of the eyes. In cases of extreme indulgence, these
symptoms become more strongly marked, and are followed by others.
The emaciation becomes excessive; the bodily powers become more
completely prostrated; the memory and the whole mind partake in
the ruin; and idiocy or insanity, in their most intractable forms,
close the train of evils. It not unfrequently happens that, from
the consequences of this vice, when carried to an extreme, not even
repentance and reformation liberate the unhappy victim.
“Let no one say that we overstate the extent of this evil, or
exaggerate its importance to the health and morals of the young.
It is in vain that we attempt to stay the licentiousness of youth,
when we leave, unchecked in their growth, those seeds of the vice
which are sown in the bosom of the child. If there is impurity in
the fountain, there will be impurity in the stream which flows from
it. To what purpose is it that we make and execute laws against open
licentiousness; that we arm ourselves with policemen and spies;
that we prosecute the keepers of brothels; that we hunt the wretched
prostitute from the dram shop to the cellar, from the cellar to the
jail, from the jail to her grave? This does not purify society: it
stops merely one external development of a corruption which still
lurks, and cankers, and festers within. The licentiousness of the
brothel is clear and open in its character; nobody defends it; every
one is aware of its seductions and its dangers; the young man who
enters the house of shame knows that he does it at the peril of
reputation, and under the dread of disease. But the other form of
licentiousness is secret from its very nature. It may be practised
without suspicion; there is little fear of discovery or of shame. It
lurks in the school, the academy, the college, the workshop, ay, even
in the nursery. No age and no profession are without examples of the
dreadful ruin it can accomplish. Begun in childhood, and sometimes
even in infancy, it is indulged without a thought of its nature or
its effects. Gradually it winds around its unhappy victim a chain
which he finds it impossible to break. Continued for years, he may
wake at last to a sense of his degradation, but perhaps too late;
for it has often happened that neither the pressure of disease, the
stings of conscience, a strong sense of religious obligation, nor
even the fear of death, have been sufficient to enable the unhappy
sufferer to break from the habit which inthralls him.
“None but those who go behind the scenes of life, and are permitted
to enter the prison-house of the human heart, can know how many are
the terrible secrets which lie hid beneath the fair and even face of
society, as we see it in the common intercourse of the world. With
how many are their early days a struggle for life and death between
principle and passion, the spirit and the flesh! With how many are
those days spent in yielding and repenting, in reluctant indulgences,
followed by agonies of remorse and shame! With how many does the
conscience become callous, and vice a second nature! How often has it
happened that natures, really fair and pure, have gradually become
tarnished and dim, and the highest hopes of youth been defeated!
How often has it happened that young men of rare promise, of whose
success great expectations have been entertained, have suddenly
failed by the way; have seemed prematurely worn down by study, and
been forced to relinquish the career on which they were entering with
the brightest prospects! Little is it suspected by anxious friends,
or a sympathizing public, in such cases, that it is not too exclusive
devotion to study; that it is not midnight toil; that it is not
errors of diet, or want of air or exercise, that have withered their
energies and unnerved their frame. There may be a nearer and a more
inevitable destroyer than these.
“This is a subject most painful to dwell upon; one upon which it is
hard to think, to speak, or to write, without seeming to partake in
some measure of its pollution. Still, attention to it is vital to any
successful effort to arrest the vices of impurity. The evils which
are directly inflicted upon the health, the physical development, the
constitution, by these secret practices, are enough in themselves
to command our interest. It sometimes happens that the habit is
acquired by accident, or persons of a peculiar temperament are led
to it by a spontaneous impulse. More frequently, however, it is
taught by one generation to that which follows; and so general is
this education of evil, that it is rare to find those who have been
fortunate enough to escape wholly from its contamination. Unhappily
the physical pollution is not all; for, as a matter almost of
course, there are associated with it loose conversations, licentious
imaginings, and low ideas of the relations of the sexes. It leads to
the reading of obscene, or at least voluptuous books, gazing upon
pictures of the same description, and to general licentiousness of
thought and of language. It is not strange, when the mind is thus
filled with such images, and taught to dwell upon and brood over them
in the immature period of youth, that this part of our nature should
be prematurely and unnaturally developed, and that the opportunities
of more advanced years should lead to that state of morals among
young men which is so notorious, and so much to be deplored.
“Is it not obvious then, where the remedy is to be applied, if
indeed a remedy be possible? Is it not obvious that our success
must be small indeed if we confine ourselves to means intended to
check the overt indulgences of maturity in licentiousness in one
generation, whilst those who are to constitute the next are left to
the same fearful development of their animal passions, which must
lead them on, by steps as certain as the grave, in the same career of
indulgence?”[26]
Such being the case, and seeking what is for the good of men alone,
without regard as yet for the interests of women, we are compelled
to indorse marriage as a most important sanitary measure, alike for
enabling a reasonable gratification of the sexual instinct, for the
avoidance of disease, and for restraining men from alternatives alike
disastrous to themselves, their descendants, and to society.
I proceed now to discuss the time in a young man’s life at which
marriage becomes advisable.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Hints to Young Men, &c., p. 36.
[14] Report of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities, 1867, p.
19.
[15] Criminal Abortion in America. Philadelphia, 1860, p. 14; North
Am. Med. Chir. Review, Mar. 1859, p. 260.
[16] American Journal of Science and Art. New Haven, March, 1867, p.
141.
[17] For remarks pertinent to the above, see editorials in the New
York Medical Record, February, 1867, p. 550, and in the Philadelphia
Medical and Surgical Reporter, for the same month, p. 137.
[18] To the million, drunkards themselves, or with drunkards in their
family, the concise and philosophical treatise upon Methomania, just
published by Dr. Albert Day, then of Boston, and now Superintendent
of the New York State Inebriate Asylum at Binghamton, will be found
to convey, with conviction, much comfort and hope.
[19] Loc. cit., p. 57.
[20] Loc. cit., p. 56.
[21] Instructions on the Commandments and Sacraments, pp. 154, 173.
[22] Acton, p. 192.
[23] Bumstead. Pathology and Treatment of Venereal Diseases.
[24] Ware. Loc. cit., p. 43.
[25] New York Medical Record, February, 1867, p. 550.
[26] Loc. cit., p. 45.
III.—HOW EARLY IN LIFE IS MARRIAGE TO BE ADVISED?
The answer to the above question varies with the circumstances under
which it is asked. Viewing the subject, as I am doing, solely from a
medical point of observation, it is unnecessary for me to give much
attention to the other arguments, for and against, that would else
have to be considered.
Political economists, almost without exception, have inveighed
against an early entrance into wedlock. I could give much evidence
upon this point, were it necessary. They base their reasonings upon
several assumptions, which are almost purely such. In some ancient
states, as Sparta, it was by law forbidden to men to marry under the
age of thirty. “And in this,” says Acton, “as in many other matters,
Lycurgus, the old lawgiver, showed his wisdom.”[27] In some modern
states, also, a time has been fixed, as twenty-five years, until
which men must remain celibate.
These restrictions have frequently been established for the purpose
of keeping alive a martial spirit. When a people are permitted to
follow the dictates of their own hearts, they are apt to anchor
themselves at home, tied down by the innumerable cords of affection
and pecuniary necessity or advantage. If this is prevented, the youth
remains for a certain number of years at the service of the state,
is taught that first of all lessons of life, obedience, without a
knowledge of which no man can himself come to rule; he is supposed
less likely to form a hasty or injudicious conjugal alliance, and
from having been sent hither or thither across the world at the
command of his superior, to be finally more anxious to settle
permanently down as a private citizen.
Again, in most countries, whether young or old, there is a tendency,
exaggerated, no doubt, in many instances, to become overstocked by
the human race; and theorists and lawgivers vie with each other in
their efforts to keep down the population. Not only is it thought
that by preventing the young from marriage, a direct check is thus
given, but that when that condition is entered at a more advanced
time of life, the man has become sobered by age, and what is
technically called “more prudent.”
Many suppose that the children of persons in the prime of life are
more likely to be sound in body and in mind than the offspring of
earlier years,—a result that does not necessarily occur,—while
others, among whom Mr. Acton, more or less distinctly denying the
benefit of marriage as a sanitary measure, add to the above arguments
a still more untenable one, that perfect continence is the only wise
and true measure of life. “Marriage,” he says, “is not the panacea of
all earthly woes, or the sole correction of all early vices. It often
interferes with work and success in life, and its only result is that
the poor man (poor in a pecuniary point of view) never reaches the
bodily health or social happiness he might otherwise have reasonably
expected. Under the age of twenty-five I have no scruple in enjoining
perfect continence. The sighing, lackadaisical boy should be bidden
to work and win his wife before he can hope to taste any of the
happiness or benefits of married life.”[28]
There is much that may be said in favor, and much in disproval, of
these several views. The great uprising of our own people, both North
and South, during the late civil conflict, the long and patient
endurance they exhibited, and the innumerable feats of great personal
valor that they performed, sufficiently prove that early marriages,
which are common in this country, and a national devotion for many
years to the arts of peace, do not necessarily deprive a race of its
most vigorous manhood. In our own instance, the conflict over, and
the best blood of the country spilled, we were yet ready, if need had
been, to defend our rights against the world.
As for becoming overstocked, there is for us no danger of this for
many long years to come. Our fertile prairies, and the long reaches
of arable land lying between the mountain ranges of the far West,
are destined to cradle untold millions; and if to these we add the
parched but still irrigable plains of the extreme Southwest, we see
that our country is still in its infancy. If older nations had but
followed the example of the Irish, the English, and the modern Jews,
all over-crowding would be more than met by emigration, the peaceful
transfer of colonists meeting the exigencies of the case far better
than the former eruptions of northern hordes, thinned by disease,
famine, and the sword.
Is it said, that contrary to the doctrines of physiologists and to
the precepts of Scripture, a purely ascetic life is the only normal
one? Acton has adverted to the fact, as he calls it, “that the
intellectual qualities are usually in an inverse ratio to the sexual
appetites. It would almost seem,” he continues, “as if the two were
incompatible; the exercise of the one annihilating the other.”[29]
With Thales, he would reply to those who ask when men should love, “A
young man, not yet—an old man, not at all;” and he styles Lord Bacon
the still wiser Englishman, quoting from him the following passages:
“You may observe that amongst all the great and worthy persons
whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent, there is not
one who hath been transported to the mad degree of love; which shows
that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion.
By how much more ought men to beware of this passion, which loseth
not only other things, but itself. He that hath preferred Helena hath
quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas, for whosoever esteemeth too
much of amorous affection quitteth both riches and wisdom. They do
best who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarter,
and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life;
for if it check once with business, it troubleth men’s fortunes, and
maketh men that they can be no ways true to their own ends.”
As a fair offset to these remarks, I shall give a brief extract from
a letter to Mr. Acton from a Cambridge graduate, whose experience
will be found not so very different from that of intellectual and
sedentary men this side the water. “Looking from the academic side
of the question, the celibacy of Fellows would seem very desirable
(for thus only can they retain their fellowships and the annual
stipend pertaining), but no one can deny that such a principle
involves the sacrifice of individual comfort. Is this fair to the
celibate? I think not. It has always seemed to me that a single
man is in an unnatural position; a being created by the Almighty
to increase and multiply a race made from the beginning male and
female, will, of course, have his natural instincts in accordance
with this design; and mortify or control them as he may, they
are still there, and cannot become extinct. The sufferings of an
abstinent life I believe to be _cruel_ to every man between five and
twenty and five and forty; and though athletic exercises, regular
diet, and so forth, supply some slight relief, still it is never
permanent; and in any event of reaction, the sufferer will find
himself the worse for his previous regularity. Of course a sedentary
life aggravates the symptoms, and I cannot believe that any man
of ordinary vigor, so living and so abstaining, will be free from
nocturnal annoyance. Still, this would be among the least of his
distresses; nay, in nine cases out of ten, I presume the safety
valve of nature is a most happy and beneficial relief; and though
I cannot fly in the face of medical authority, and deny that there
is a pernicious class of the disorder, still I firmly believe all
those cases immensely exaggerated by the sufferers, and capable of
an easy cure, to wit, matrimony, unless the patient, by degrading
practices, has reduced himself to a state of impotence. Meanwhile a
man should go into training for a conflict with his appetites just
as keenly as he does for the University Eight, the only difference
being that the training will be more beneficial and more protracted.
Besides diet and exercise, let him be constantly employed; in fact,
let him have so many metaphorical irons in the fire that he will
find it difficult to snatch ten minutes for private meditation; let
his sleep be very limited, and the temperature he moves in as nearly
cold as he can bear; let neither his eye nor his ear be voluntarily
open to anything that could possibly excite the passions; if he see
or hear accidentally what might have this tendency, let him at once
resort to his dumb-bells, or any other muscular precaution, till he
is quite fatigued; whenever any sensual image occurs involuntarily
to his mind, let him fly to the same resource, or else to the
intellectual company of friends, till he feels secure of no return
on the enemy’s part. Lastly, I would fain add, let the sufferer from
sexual causes make his affliction the subject of most earnest prayer,
at any and all times, to that Ear where no supplication is made in
vain. Thus armed, he _may_ keep his assailant at bay, though I fear
conquest is impossible, and the struggle a most severe one. Sound
old Jeremy Taylor, after discoursing on chastity in something like
the above strain, says, if I remember right, ‘These remedies are
for extraordinary cases, but the ordinary remedy is good and holy
marriage.”
As I have said, the time at which marriage may be entered upon must
vary in accordance with the circumstances of each case. Love is
proverbially blind, and I shall be told that regard ought to be had
to the actual and relative ages of the parties, their health, their
pecuniary circumstances and prospects, the advice and wishes of
friends. All this is very true, to a certain extent, but far more
depends upon the mental and spiritual strength of the husband; if he
is determined to conquer adverse circumstances, he can generally do
so, just in proportion as he curbs and keeps under control himself.
Let him look forward and determine to use and not abuse his marital
privileges, to respect his wife, and not make of her a mere plaything
that will early wear out, and a man will find the lions that seemed
to stand in his path the veriest illusion. The points, however, that
I have referred to are worthy a moment’s consideration.
As to age, there can be no doubt that, for some reasons, it would
be better for no man to marry before he has reached the age of
twenty-five, and for no woman until she is twenty; for till this
time neither party can be considered, physically, as really mature.
To apply this rule, however, rigidly to practice, would, in this
country, be very difficult. With us, such is the precocity of mental
development, that the young child is often in many things the old
man. Taken from the nursery almost before the first dentition has
occurred, placed in business or upon the classics almost at the time
of assuming the boy’s distinctive garments, many of our merchants and
manufacturers have achieved a fortune, and many of our professional
men a reputation, by the time they have hardly passed their majority.
Precocity of youth, spent under the stimulus of the American
atmosphere, climatic, intellectual, and moral, can but result in a
certain kind of precocity of manhood.