1. EXPOSED YOUTH.--Generally even in the beginning of the period when
sexual uneasiness begins to show itself in the boy, he is exposed in
schools, institutes, and elsewhere to the temptations of secret
vice, which is transmitted from youth to youth, like a contagious
corruption, and which in thousands destroys the first germs of
virility. Countless numbers of boys are addicted to these vices for
years. That they do not in the beginning of nascent puberty proceed to
sexual intercourse with women, is generally due to youthful timidity,
which dares not reveal its desire, or from want of experience for
finding opportunities. The desire is there, for the heart is already
corrupted.
2. BOYHOOD TIMIDITY OVERCOME.--Too often a common boy's timidity is
overcome by chance or by seduction, which is rarely lacking in great
cities where prostitution is flourishing, and thus numbers of boys
immediately after the transition period of youth, in accordance with
the previous secret practice, accustom themselves to the association
with prostitute women, and there young manhood and morals are soon
lost forever.
3. MARRIAGE-BED RESOLUTIONS.--Most men of the educated classes enter
the marriage-bed with the consciousness of leaving behind them a whole
army of prostitutes or seduced women, in whose arms they cooled their
passions and spent the vigor of their youth. But with such a past the
married man does not at the same time leave behind him its influence
on his inclinations. The habit of having a feminine being at his
disposal for every rising appetite, and the desire for change
inordinately indulged for years, generally make themselves felt again
as soon as the honeymoon is over. Marriage will not make a morally
corrupt man all at once a good man and a model husband.
4. THE INJUSTICE OF MAN.--Now, although many men are in a certain
sense "not worthy to unloose the latchet of the shoes" of the
commonest woman, much less to "unfasten her girdle," yet they make
the most extravagant demands on the feminine sex. Even the greatest
debauchee, who has spent his vigor in the arms of a hundred
courtesans, will cry out fraud and treachery if he does not receive
his newly married bride as an untouched virgin. Even the most
dissolute husband will look on his wife as deserving of death if his
daily infidelity is only once reciprocated.
5. UNJUST DEMANDS.--The greater the injustice a husband does to his
wife, the less he is willing to submit to from her; the oftener he
becomes unfaithful to her, the stricter he is in demanding
faithfulness from her. We see that despotism nowhere denies its own
nature: the more a despot deceives and abuses his people, the more
submissiveness and faithfulness he demands of them.
6. SUFFERING WOMEN.--Who can be astonished at the many unhappy
marriages, if he knows how unworthy most men are of their wives? Their
virtues they rarely can appreciate, and their vices they generally
call out by their own. Thousands of women suffer from the results of
a mode of life of which they, having remained pure in their thought,
have no conception whatever; and many an unsuspecting wife nurses her
husband with tenderest care in sicknesses which are nothing more than
the consequences of his amours with other women.
7. AN INHUMAN CRIMINAL.--When at last, after long years of delusion
and endurance, the scales drop from the eyes of the wife, and revenge
or despair drives her into a hostile position towards her lord and
master, she is an inhuman criminal, and the hue and cry against the
fickleness of women and the falsity of their nature is endless. Oh,
the injustice of society and the injustice of cruel man. Is there no
relief for helpless women that are bound by the ties of marriage to
men who are nothing but rotten corruption?
8. VULGAR DESIRE.--The habit of regarding the end and aim of woman
only from the most vulgar side--not to respect in her the noble human
being, but to see in her only the instrument of sensual desire--is
carried so far among men that they will allow it to force into the
background considerations among themselves, which they otherwise
pretend to rank very high.
9. THE ONLY REMEDY.--But when the feeling of women has once been
driven to indignation with respect to the position which they
occupy, it is to be hoped that they will compel men to be pure before
marriage, and they will remain loyal after marriage.
10. WORSE THAN SAVAGES.--With all our civilization we are put to shame
even by the savages. The savages know of no fastidiousness of the
sexual instinct and of no brothels. We are, indeed, likewise savages,
but in quite a different sense. Proof of this is especially furnished
by our youth. But that our students, and young men in general, usually
pass through the school of corruption and drag the filth of the road
which they have traversed before marriage along with them throughout
life, is not their fault so much as the fault of prejudices and of our
political and social conditions that prohibits a proper education, and
the placing of the right kind of literature on these subjects into the
hands of young people.
[Illustration]
11. REASON AND REMEDY.--Keep the youth pure by a thorough system
of plain unrestricted training. The seeds of immorality are sown in
youth, and the secret vice eats out their young manhood often before
the age of puberty. They develop a bad character as they grow older.
Young girls are ruined, and licentiousness and prostitution flourish.
Keep the boys pure and the harlot would soon lose her vocation.
Elevate the morals of the boys, and you will have pure men and moral
husbands.
[Illustration: SUICIDE LAKE.]
* * * * *