The unwelcome child

It is twenty years since I first heard you discourse on the Mission and Relation of the Sexes. You stated then, in substance, that the sexes had power, each over the other, to save or to destroy; that all rational hope of the elevation and perfection of human nature must rest upon a knowledge of, and obedience to, the laws of Nature, designed to govern those relations; that man must look to generation, rather than to regeneration, to bring the race into perfect union and harmony with the Divine; that no power could save either man or woman, in isolation from, or in false relations with, each other; and that if either sinks or rises, the other must follow.

I was but a boy when I first heard you utter such sentiments. I did not then understand their full import. They had not entered into the experience of my inner or outer life. Yet I took the impression, that woman would be to man just what he chose and had power to make her; and that it depended on man to say whether woman should be to him a purifying and ennobling influence, or a source of degradation and ruin.

From that time I had a desire, so far as woman is concerned, to place myself in such relations to her, that her influence on my life might be pure and ennobling. I have studied to get clear and definite views of my nature and needs as a man, and how woman can most perfectly accomplish her mission of love and salvation to me.

I am now a husband; made so, not by any enactment, ceremony or license of Church or State (though my marriage is placed upon record, as an historical fact); nor by the consent of any third party; nor by any formal contract or bargain between me and the woman to whom I hold this relation; but by a law or necessity of my being; by a power, unseen, but ever present, and ever potent to guide, like that which binds the needle to the pole, or the soul to God.

All that qualifies me to be a husband and a father, I have consecrated to the development and happiness of my wife, and of the children who may result from our union. I have done this, not because she demands it as her right, but solely because I find in myself a necessity for so doing. She make no demands on me as a right; she asks of me only what I feel the necessity of giving. My love for her gives me no rights over her property, her person, or her affections. It makes no demands on her, as a right, but it makes great demands on my own manhood. True conjugal love never creates rights over the loved one, but necessities in the one who loves. This necessity is laid upon me, not by any arbitrary decree of Church or State, but solely by the concentrated, exclusive love, which, as a husband, I bear to my wife. The purity and dignity of my nature are involved in my yielding to this necessity.

I would consecrate my manhood to the perfection and happiness of my wife, and of the children who may be born of our union, in the home which, by our united efforts, we hope to create. Your conversation with me, as a boy and a youth, and your counsel, have been invaluable in the regulation of my life in my relations with women. I have read your work, entitled “Marriage and Parentage; or, the Reproductive Element in Man as a Means of his Elevation and Happiness.” To us, in the home of our love, your teachings will ever be as divine oracles, to regulate our relations as husband and wife. We would embody in our lives your “Ernest” and “Nina,” especially in regard to parentage, and the relation that leads to it; believing that those who do actualize that ideal husband and wife, cannot fail to receive a divine reward, in an ever-growing and an ever-ennobling love and trust. To that husband who shall embody your Ernest, the love, the respect and trust of his wife, will be as the sun and dew of heaven to the opening buds of spring; they will expand and beautify his manly soul, and cause his manhood to give out all its beauty and fragrance, and shed a bright and steady light on the pathway of his wife, and bring enduring rest to her heart in the home of her wedded love. We would live in and for each other, and in and for our offspring. We would be represented in the great human family by those whom we shall be proud to call our children, and whom all of human kind shall feel honored to recognize as brothers and sisters. We would not see our nature degraded, nor our glory tarnished, in ourselves or our posterity, but we would see that glory made brighter, and that nature more noble.

I know that on the government of my passional relations with my wife depends her health and life of body and soul, the health of our children, and the beauty and happiness of our home. I know, if she ever is made to fear my passion, and to shrink from the personal intimacies of her husband, home, from that hour, becomes desolate and repulsive, no matter what may be the natural or artistic elegance of our material surroundings. I know that in proportion as she cherishes a loving and trusting respect for all that constitutes me a man, will she lovingly and calmly rest in the bosom of her husband; and that the most sacred sanctuary of our home, instead of being an altar of cruel and merciless sacrifice of her health and life, will be a fountain of eternal life and peace to us both,—a temple consecrated to all true manifestations of an unselfish conjugal and parental love.

I feel the responsibility that rests upon me. I would have my wife associate my manhood with her own purity, and not with my selfish gratification. I would have her assured that my nature, as a man, is under the control of conscience and reason, and held in subjection to her perfect development, and that of our children. I would be an unselfish, noble husband, and a true and happy father; a husband and father who can stand in the pride and dignity of conscious nobility before his wife and children. I would be a Man; one whose soul, vitalized and ennobled by the presence and power of conjugal and paternal love, shall never cower before its own consciousness, nor in the presence of its God.

If you can give me your thoughts and feelings in regard to parentage, and the relation that leads to it, you will confer a favor on one whose love and respect for you will never end.