“What would be the probable effect, in social life, if mankind obtained and exercised a control over the instinct of reproduction?
“My settled conviction is—and I am prepared to defend it—that the effect would be salutary, moral, civilizing; that it would prevent many crimes and more unhappiness; that it would lessen intemperance and profligacy; that it would polish the manners and improve the moral feelings; that it would relieve the burden of the poor, and the cares of the rich; that it would most essentially benefit the rising generation, by enabling parents generally more carefully to educate, and more comfortably to provide for, their offspring. I proceed to substantiate as I may these positions.
“And first, let us look solely to the situation of married persons. Is it not notorious, that the families of the married often increase beyond what a regard for the young beings coming into the world, or the happiness of those who give them birth, would dictate? In how many instances does the hard-working father, and more especially the mother, of a poor family, remain slaves throughout their lives, tugging at the oar of incessant labor, toiling to live, and living but to toil; when if their offspring had been limited to two or three only, they might have enjoyed comfort and comparative affluence! How often is the health of the mother, giving birth every year to an infant—happy if it be not twins!—and compelled to toil on, even at those times when nature imperiously calls for some relief from daily drudgery—how often is the mother’s comfort, health, nay, her life, thus sacrificed! Or, if care and toil have weighed down the spirit, and at last broken the health of the father, how often is the widow left, unable, with the most virtuous intentions, to save her fatherless offspring from becoming degraded objects of charity, or profligate votaries of vice!
“Fathers and mothers! not you who have your nursery and your nursery-maids, and who leave your children at home, to frequent the crowded rout, or to glitter in the hot ball-room; but you by the labor of whose hands your children are to live, and who, as you count their rising numbers, sigh to think how soon sickness or misfortune may lessen those wages which are now but just sufficient to afford them bread—fathers and mothers in humble life! to you my argument comes home, with the force of reality. Others may impugn—may ridicule it. By bitter experience you know and feel its truth.
“Yet this is not all. Every physician knows, that there are many women so constituted that they cannot give birth to healthy—sometimes not to living children. Is it desirable—is it moral, that such women should become pregnant? Yet this is continually the case, the warnings of physicians to the contrary notwithstanding. Others there are, who ought never to become parents; because, if they do, it is only to transmit to their offspring grievous hereditary diseases; perhaps that worst of diseases, insanity. Yet they will not lead a life of celibacy. They marry. They become parents, and the world suffers by it. That a human being should give birth to a child, knowing that he transmits to it hereditary disease, is in my opinion an immorality. But it is a folly to expect that we can ever induce all such persons to live the lives of Shakers. Nor is it necessary; all that duty requires of them is, to refrain from becoming parents. Who can estimate the beneficial effect which rational moral restraint may thus have, on the health, beauty, and physical improvement of our race, throughout future generations?
“But, apart from these latter considerations, is it not most plainly, clearly, incontrovertibly desirable, that parents should have the power[29] to limit their offspring, whether they choose to exercise it or not? Who can lose by their having this power? and how many may gain! may gain competency for themselves, and the opportunity carefully to educate and provide for their children! How many may escape the jarrings, the quarrels, the disorder, the anxiety, which an overgrown family too often causes in the domestic circle?
“It sometimes happens, that individual instances come home to the feelings with greater force than any general reasoning. I shall, in this place, adduce one which came immediately under my cognizance.
“In June, 1829, I received from an elderly gentleman of the first respectability, occupying a public situation in one of the western states, a letter requesting to know whether I could afford any information or advice in a case which greatly interested him and which regarded a young woman for whom he had ever experienced the sentiments of a father. In explanation of the circumstances to which he alluded, he enclosed me a copy of a letter which she had just written to him, and which I here transcribe verbatim. A letter more touching from its simplicity, or more strikingly illustrative of the unfortunate situation in which not one, but thousands, in married life, find themselves placed, I have never read.
“‘The friendship which has existed between you and my father, ever since I can remember; the unaffected kindness you used to express towards me, when you resided in our neighborhood, during my childhood; the lively solicitude you have always seemed to feel for my welfare, and your benevolence and liberal character, induce me to lay before you in a few words, my critical situation, and ask you for your kind advice.
“‘It is my lot to be united in wedlock to a young mechanic of industrious habits, good dispositions, pleasing manners, and agreeable features, excessively fond of our children and of me; in short, eminently well qualified to render himself and family and all around him happy, were it not for the besetting sin of drunkenness. About once in every three or four weeks, if he meet, either accidentally or purposely, with some of his friends, of whom, either real or pretended, his good nature and liberality procure him many, he is sure to get intoxicated, so as to lose his reason; and, when thus beside himself, he trades and makes foolish bargains, so much to his disadvantage, that he has almost reduced himself and family to beggary, being no longer able to keep a shop of his own, but obliged to work journey work.
“‘We have not been married quite four years, and have already given being to three dear little ones. Under present circumstances, what can I expect will be their fate and mine? I shudder at the prospect before me. With my excellent constitution and industry, and the labor of my husband, I feel able to bring up these three little cherubs in decency, were I to have no more: but when I seriously consider my situation, I can see no other alternative left for me, than to tear myself away from the man who, though addicted to occasional intoxication, would sacrifice his life for my sake; and for whom, contrary to my father’s will, I successively refused the hand and wealth of a lawyer and of a preacher; or continue to witness his degradation, and bring into existence, in all probability, a numerous family of helpless and destitute children, who, on account of poverty, must inevitably be doomed to a life of ignorance, and consequent vice and misery.
“Need I add one word of comment on such a case as this? Every feeling mind must be touched by the amiable feeling and good sense that pervade the letter. Every rational being, surely, must admit, that the power of preventing, without injury or sacrifice, the increase of a family, under such circumstances, is a public benefit and a private blessing.
“Will it be asserted—and I know no other even plausible reply to these facts and arguments—will it be asserted, that the thing is, in itself, immoral or unseemly? I deny it; and I point to the population of France, in justification of my denial. Where will you find, on the face of the globe, a more polished or more civilized nation than the French, or one more punctiliously alive to any rudeness, coarseness or indecorum? You will find none. The French are scrupulous on these points, to a proverb. Yet, as every intelligent traveller in France must have remarked, there is scarcely to be found, among the middle or upper classes (and seldom even among the working classes), such a thing as a large family; very seldom more than three or four children. A French lady of the utmost delicacy and respectability will, in common conversation, say as simply—(ay, and as innocently, whatever the self-righteous prude may aver to the contrary)—as she would proffer any common remark about the weather: ‘I have three children; my husband and I think that is as many as we can do justice to, and I do not intend to have any more.’[30]
“I have stated notorious facts, facts which no traveller who has visited Paris, and seen anything of the domestic life of its inhabitants, will attempt to deny. However heterodox, then, my view of the subject may be in this country, I am supported in it by the opinion and the practice of the most refined and most socially cultivated nation in the world.
“Will it still be argued, that the practice, if not coarse, is immoral? Again, I appeal to France. I appeal to the details of the late glorious revolution—to the innumerable instances of moderation, of courage, of honesty, of disinterestedness, of generosity, of magnanimity, displayed on the memorable ‘three days,’ and ever since; and I challenge comparison between the national character of France for virtue, as well as politeness, and that of any other nation under heaven.
“It is evident, then, that to married persons, the power of limiting their offspring to their circumstances is most desirable. It may often promote the harmony, peace, and comfort of families; sometimes it may save from bankruptcy and ruin, and sometimes it may rescue the mother from premature death. In no case can it, by possibility, be worse than superfluous. In no case can it be mischievous.
“If the moral feelings were carefully cultivated, if we were taught to consult, in everything, rather the welfare of those we love than our own, how strongly would these arguments be felt? No man ought even to desire that a woman should become the mother of his children, unless it was her express wish, and unless he knew it to be for her welfare, that she should. Her feelings, her interests, should be for him in this matter an imperative law. She it is who bears the burden, and therefore with her also should the decision rest. Surely it may well be a question whether it be desirable, or whether any man ought to ask, that the whole life of an intellectual, cultivated woman, should be spent in bearing a family of twelve or fifteen children; to the ruin, perhaps, of her constitution, if not to the overstocking of the world. No man ought to require or expect it.
“Shall I be told, that this is the very romance of morality? Alas! that what ought to be a matter of every day practice—a commonplace exercise of the duties and charities of life—a bounden duty—an instance of domestic courtesy too universal either to excite remark or to merit commendation—alas! that a virtue so humble that its absence ought to be reproached as a crime, should, to our selfish perceptions, seem but a fastidious refinement, or a fanciful supererogation!
“But I pass from the case of married persons to that of young men and women who have yet formed no matrimonial connexion.
“In the present state of the world, when public opinion stamps with opprobrium every sexual connection which has not received the orthodox sanction of an oath, almost all young persons, on reaching the age of maturity, desire to marry. The heart must be very cold, or very isolated, that does not find some object on which to bestow its affections. Thus, early marriages would be almost universal, did not prudential considerations interfere. The young man thinks, ‘I must not marry yet. I cannot support a family. I must make money first, and think of a matrimonial settlement afterwards.’
“And so he goes to making money, fully and sincerely resolved, in a few years to share it with her whom he now loves. But passions are strong, and temptations great. Curiosity, perhaps, introduces him into the company of those poor creatures whom society first reduces to a dependence on the most miserable of mercenary trades, and then curses for being what she has made them. There his health and his moral feelings alike are made shipwreck. The affections he had thought to treasure up for their first object, are chilled by dissipation and blunted by excess. He scarcely retains a passion but avarice. Years pass on—years of profligacy and speculation—and his first wish is accomplished; his fortune is made. Where now are the feelings and resolves of his youth?
“He is a man of pleasure—a man of the world. He laughs at the romance of his youth, and marries a fortune. If gaudy equipages and gay parties confer happiness, he is happy. But if these be only the sunshine on the stormy ocean below, he is a victim to that system of morality which forbids a reputable connexion until the period when provision has been made for a large, expected family. Had he married the first object of his choice, and simply delayed becoming a father until his prospects seemed to warrant it, how different might have been his lot! Until men and women are absolved from the fear of becoming parents, except when they themselves desire it, they ever will form mercenary and demoralizing connexions, and seek in dissipation the happiness they might have found in domestic life.
“I know that this, however common, is not an universal case. Sometimes the heavy responsibilities of a family are incurred at all risks; and who shall say how often a life of unremitting toil and poverty is the consequence? Sometimes—if even rarely—the young mind does hold to its first resolves. The youth plods through years of cold celibacy and solitary anxiety; happy, if before the best hours of life are gone, and its warmest feelings withered, he may return to claim the reward of his forbearance and of his industry. But even in this comparatively happy case, shall we count for nothing the years of ascetical sacrifice at which after-happiness is purchased? The days of youth are not too many, nor its affections too lasting. We may, indeed, if a great object require it, sacrifice the one and mortify the other. But is this, in itself, desirable? Does not wisdom tell that such sacrifice is a dead loss—to the warm-hearted often a grievous one? Does not wisdom bid us temperately enjoy the spring-time of life, ‘while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh’ when we shall say, ‘we have no pleasure in them?’
“Let us say, then, if we will, that the youth who thus sacrifices the present for the future, chooses wisely between two evils, profligacy and asceticism. This is true. But let us not imagine the lesser evil to be a good. It is not good for man to be alone. It is for no man’s or woman’s happiness or benefit that they should be condemned to Shakerism. It is a violence done to the feelings, and an injury to the character. A life of rigid celibacy, though infinitely preferable to a life of dissipation, is yet fraught with many evils. Peevishness, restlessness, vague longings, and instability of character, are among the least of these. The mind is unsettled, and the judgment warped. Even the very instinct which is thus mortified assumes an undue importance, and occupies a portion of the thoughts which does not of right or nature belong to it; and which, during a life of satisfied affection, it would not obtain.
“I speak not now of extreme cases, where solitary vice[31] or disease, or even insanity, has been the result of ascetical mortification. I speak of every day cases; and I am well convinced that (however wise it often is, in the present state of the world, to select and adhere to this alternative), yet no man or woman can live the life of a conscientious Shaker, without suffering, more or less, both physically, mentally, and morally. This is the more to be regretted, because the very noblest portion of our species—the good, the pure, the high-minded, and the kind-hearted—are the chief victims.
“Thus, inasmuch as the scruple of incurring heavy responsibilities deters from forming moral connexions, and encourages intemperance and prostitution, the knowledge which enables man to limit his offspring, would, in the present state of things, save much unhappiness and prevent many crimes. Young persons sincerely attached to each other, and who might wish to marry, would marry early; merely resolving not to become parents until prudence permitted it. The young man, instead of solitary toil or vulgar dissipation, would enjoy the society and the assistance of her he had chosen as his companion; and the best years of life, whose pleasures never return, would not be squandered in riot, or lost through mortification.
“My readers will remark, that all the arguments I have hitherto employed, apply strictly to the present order of things, and the present laws and system of marriage. No one, therefore, need be a moral heretic on this subject to admit and approve them. The marriage laws might all remain for ever as they are; and yet a moral check to population would be beneficent and important.
“But there are other cases, it will be said, where the knowledge of a preventive would be mischievous. If young women, it will be argued, were absolved from the fear of consequences, they would rarely preserve their chastity. Unlegalized connexions would be common and seldom detected. Seduction would be facilitated. Let us dispassionately examine this argument.
“I fully agree with that most amiable of moral heretics, Shelley, that ‘Seduction, which term could have no meaning in a rational society, has now a most tremendous one.’[32] It matters not how artificial the penalty which society has chosen to affix to a breach of her capricious decrees. Society has the power in her own hands; and that moral Shylock, Public Opinion, enforces the penalty, even though it cost the life of the victim. The consequences, then, to the poor sufferer, whose offence is, at most, but an error of judgment or a weakness of the heart, are the same as if her imprudence were indeed a crime of the blackest dye. And his conduct who, for a momentary, selfish gratification, will deliberately entail a life of wretchedness on one whose chief fault, perhaps, was her misplaced confidence in a villain, is not one whit excused by the folly and injustice of the sentence.[33] Some poet says,
What epithet then belongs to him who makes it a trade to win a woman’s gentle affections, betray her generous confidence, and then, when the consequences become apparent, abandon her to dependence, and the scorn of a cold, a self-righteous, and a wicked world; a world which will forgive anything but rebellion against its tyranny, and in whose eyes it seems the greatest of crimes to be unsuspecting and warm-hearted! I will give my hand freely to a galley-slave, and speak to the highway-robber as to an honest man; but there is one character with whom I desire to exchange neither word nor greeting—the cold-hearted, deliberate, practised, and calculating seducer!
“And, let me ask, what is it gives to the arts of seduction their sting, and stamps to the world its victim? Why is it, that the man goes free and enters society again, almost courted and applauded for his treachery, while the woman is a mark for the finger of reproach, and a butt for the tongue of scandal? Because she bears about her the mark of what is called her disgrace. She becomes a mother; and society has something tangible against which to direct its anathemas. Nine-tenths, at least, of the misery and ruin which are caused by seduction, even in the present state of public opinion on the subject, result from cases of pregnancy.
“If the little being lives, the dove in the falcon’s claws is not more certain of death, than we may be, that society will visit, with its bitterest scoffs and reproaches, the bruised spirit of the mother and the unconscious innocence of the child.
“If, then, we cannot do all, shall we neglect a part? If we cannot prevent every misery which man’s selfishness and the world’s cruelty entail on a sex which it ought to be our pride and honor to cherish and defend; let us prevent as many as we can. If we cannot persuade society to revoke its unmanly and unchristian[34] persecution of those who are often the best and gentlest of its members—let us, at the least, give to woman what defence we may, against its violence.
“I appeal to any father, trembling for the reputation of his child, whether, if she were induced to form an unlegalized connexion, her pregnancy would not be a frightful aggravation? I appeal to him, whether a preventive which shall save her from a situation which must soon disclose all to the world, would not be an act of mercy, of charity, of philanthropy—whether it might not save him from despair, and her from ruin? The fastidious conformist may frown upon the question, but to the father it comes home; and, whatever his lips may say, his heart will acknowledge the soundness and the force of the argument it conveys.
“It may be, that sticklers for morality will still demur to the positions I defend. They will perhaps tell me, as the committee of a certain society in this city lately did—that the power of preventing conception ‘holds out inducements and facilities for the prostitution of their daughters, their sisters, and their wives.’
“Truly, but they pay their wives, their sisters, and their daughters, a poor compliment! Is, then, this vaunted chastity a mere thing of circumstance and occasion? Is there but the difference of opportunity between it and prostitution? Would their wives, and their sisters, and their daughters, if once absolved from the fear of offspring, all become prostitutes—and sell their embrace for gold, and descend to a level with the most degraded? In truth, but they slander their own kindred: they libel their own wives, sisters, and daughters. If they spoke truth—if fear were indeed the only safeguard of their relatives’ chastity, little value should I place on virtue like that! and small would I esteem his offence, who should attempt to seduce it.[35]
“That chastity which is worth preserving is not the chastity that owes its birth to fear and to ignorance. If to enlighten a woman regarding a simple physiological fact will make her a prostitute, she must be especially predisposed to profligacy. But it is a libel on the sex. Few, indeed, there are, who would continue so miserable and degrading a calling, could they but escape from it. For one prostitute that is made by inclination, ten are made by necessity. Reform the laws—equalize the comforts of society, and you need withhold no knowledge from your wives and daughters. It is want, not knowledge, that leads to prostitution.
“For myself, I would withhold from no sister, or daughter, or wife of mine, any ascertained fact whatever. It should be to me a duty and a pleasure to communicate to them all I knew myself; and I should hold it an insult to their understandings and their hearts to imagine, that their virtue would diminish as their knowledge increased. Vice is never the offspring of just knowledge, and they who say it is, slander their own nature. Would we but trust human nature, instead of continually suspecting it, and guarding it by bolts and bars, and thinking to make it very chaste by keeping it very ignorant, what a different world we should have of it! The virtue of ignorance is a sickly plant, ever exposed to the caterpillar of corruption, liable to be scorched and blasted even by the free light of heaven; of precarious growth; and even if at last artificially matured, of little or no real value.
“I know that parents often think it right and proper to withhold from their children—especially from their daughters—facts the most influential on their future lives, and the knowledge of which is essential to every man and woman’s well-being.[36] Such a course has ever appeared to me ill-judged and productive of very injurious effects. A girl is surely no whit the better for believing, until her marriage night, that children are found among the cabbage leaves in the garden. The imagination is excited, the curiosity kept continually on the stretch; and that which, if simply explained, would have been recollected only as any other physiological phenomenon, assumes all the rank and importance and engrossing interest of a mystery. Nay, I am well convinced, that mere curiosity has often led ignorant young people into situations, from which a little more confidence and openness on the part of their parents and guardians, would have effectually secured them.
“But if we could prevent the circulation of truth, why should we? We are not afraid of it ourselves. No man thinks his morality will suffer by it. Each feels certain that his virtue can stand any degree of knowledge. And is it not the height of egregious presumption in each to imagine that his neighbor is so much weaker than himself, and requires a bandage which he can do without? Most of all is it presumptuous to suppose, that that knowledge which the man of the world can bear with impunity, will corrupt the young and the pure-hearted. It is the sullied conscience only that suggests such fears. Trust youth and innocence. Speak to them openly. Show them that you respect them, by treating them with confidence; and they will quickly learn to respect and to govern themselves. You enlist even their pride in your behalf; and you will soon see them make it their boast and their highest pleasure to merit your confidence. But watch them, and show your suspicions of them but once,—and you are the jailor, who will keep his prisoners just as long as bars and bolts shall prevent their escape. The world was never made for a prison-house; it is too large and ill-guarded: nor were parents ever intended for jail-keepers; their very affections unfit them for the task.
“There is no more beautiful sight on earth, than a family among whom there are no secrets and no reserves; where the young people confide everything to their elder friends—for such to them are their parents—and where the parents trust everything to their children; where each thought is communicated as freely as it arises; and all knowledge given, as simply as it is received. If the world contain a prototype of that Paradise, where nature is said to have known no sin or impropriety, it is such a family; and if there be a serpent that can poison the innocence of its inmates, that serpent is SUSPICION.
“I ask no greater pleasure than thus to be the guardian and companion of young beings whose innocence shall speak to me as unreservedly as it thinks to itself; of young beings who shall never imagine that there is guilt in their thoughts, or sin in their confidence; and to whom, in return, I may impart every important and useful fact that is known to myself. Their virtue shall be of that hardy growth, which all facts tend to nourish and strengthen.
“I put it to my readers, whether such a view of human nature, and such a mode of treating it, be not in accordance with the noblest feelings of their hearts. I put it to them, whether they have not felt themselves encouraged, improved, strengthened in every virtuous resolution, when they were generously trusted; and whether they have not felt abased and degraded, when they were suspiciously watched, and spied after, and kept in ignorance. If they find such feelings in their own hearts, let them not self-righteously imagine, that they can only be won by generosity, or that the nature of their fellow-creatures is different from their own.
“There are other considerations connected with this subject, which farther attest the social advantages of the control I advocate. Human affections are mutable, and the sincerest of moral resolutions may change.[37] Every day furnishes instances of alienations, and of separations; sometimes almost before the honey-moon is well expired. In such cases of unsuitability, it cannot be considered desirable that there should be offspring; and the power of refraining from becoming parents until intimacy had, in a measure, established the likelihood of permanent harmony of views and feelings, must be confessed to be advantageous.
“It would be impossible to meet every argument in detail, which ingenuity or prejudice might put forward. If the world were not actually afraid to think freely or to listen to the suggestions of common sense, three-fourths of what has already been said would be superfluous; for most of the arguments employed would occur spontaneously to any rational, reasoning being. But the mass of mankind have still, in a measure, everything to learn on this subject. The world seems to me much to resemble a company of gourmands, who sit down to a plentiful repast, first very punctiliously saying grace over it; and then, under the sanction of the priest’s blessing, think to gorge themselves with impunity; as conceiving, that gluttony after grace is no sin. So it is with popular customs and popular morality. Everything is permitted, if external forms be but respected. Legal roguery is no crime, and ceremony-sanctioned excess no profligacy. The substance is sacrificed to the form, the virtue to the outward observance. The world troubles its head little about whether a man be honest or dishonest, so he knows how to avoid the penitentiary and escape the hangman. In like manner, the world seldom thinks it worth while to inquire whether a man be temperate or intemperate, prudent or thoughtless. It takes especial care to inform itself whether in all things he conforms to orthodox requirements; and if he does, all is right. Thus men too often learn to consider an oath an absolution from all subsequent decencies and duties, and a full release from all responsibilities. If a husband maltreat his wife, the offence is venal; for he premised it by making her at the altar, an ‘honest woman.’ If a married father neglects his children, it is a trifle; for grace was regularly said before they were born.
“With such a world as this, it is a difficult matter to reason. After listening to all I have said, it may perhaps cut me short by reminding me, that nature herself declares it to be right and proper, that we should reproduce our species without calculation or restraint. I will ask, in reply, whether nature also declares it to be right and proper, that when the thermometer is at 96°, we should drink greedily of cold water, and drop down dead in the streets? Let the world be told, that if nature gave us our passions and propensities, she gave us also the power wisely to control them; and that, when we hesitate to exercise that power we descend to a level with the brute creation, and become the sport of fortune—the mere slaves of circumstance.[38]
“To one other argument it were not, perhaps, worth while to advert, but that it has been already speciously used to excite popular prejudice. It has been said, that to recommend to mankind prudential restraint in cases where children cannot be provided for, is an insult to the poor man; since all ought to be so circumstanced that they might provide amply for the largest family. Most assuredly all ought to be so circumstanced; but all are not. And there would be just as much propriety in bidding a poor man to go and take by force a piece of Saxony broadcloth from his neighbor’s store, because he ought to be able to purchase it, as to encourage him to go on producing children, because he ought to have the wherewithal to support them. Let us exert every nerve to correct the injustice and arrest the misery that results from a vicious order of things; but, until we have done so, let us not, for humanity’s sake, madly recommend that which grievously aggravates the evil; which increases the burden on the present generation, and threatens with neglect and ignorance the next.
“It now remains, after having spoken of the desirability of obtaining control over the instinct of reproduction, to speak of its practicability.
“I have taken great pains to ascertain the opinions of the most enlightened physicians of Great Britain and France on this subject; (opinions which popular prejudice will not permit them to offer publicly in their works;) and they all concur in admitting, what the experience of the French nation positively proves, that man may have a perfect control over this instinct: and that men and women may, without any injury to health, or the slightest violence done to the moral feelings, and with but small diminution to the pleasure which accompanies the gratification of the instinct, refrain at will from becoming parents. It has chanced to me, also, to win the confidence of several individuals, who have communicated to me, without reserve, their own experience: and all this has been corroborative of the same opinion.
“However various and contradictory the different theories of generation, almost all physiologists are agreed, that the entrance of the sperm itself (or of some volatile particles proceeding from it) into the uterus, must precede conception. This it was that probably first suggested the possibility of preventing conception at all.”
The eloquent writer, who was at that time unaware of the existence of Desomeaux’s mode of prevention to conception,[39] states the same result was attained by a complete withdrawal on the part of the male previous to emission. But this mode, it will be readily perceived, is attended with, to some, insurmountable difficulties.
In the first place, few men can invariably control themselves in this respect, and to be an effectual preventive, he must ever, and invariably control his passions. Now it cannot be denied, that even those who habitually can, and do control themselves, will inevitably, now and then, in so exciting a passion, lose their self-control. It is impossible to do otherwise. And one moment’s forgetfulness defeats the end. In the second place, even if always and invariably practicable, it makes the act of coition incomplete and unsatisfactory. In the third place it would be almost, nay quite impossible, to prevent an imperceptible and unconscious escape of semen, sufficient however to produce conception, often giving rise to unjust and unfounded suspicions, when, in fact, the cause for the existence of pregnancy is the same as though no withdrawal was practised. And lastly, its effects upon the constitution are frequently not unlike those produced by onanism. In addition to which, it is unsafe, because uncertain; consequently, when indispensable to prevent pregnancy, is of no avail, if not actually dangerous.[40]
To sum up, in brief, why pregnancy should be prevented, the reasons adduced seem to be conclusive to the able and talented writer, in its moral, social, and physiological aspect.
Morally. Firstly. It induces early marriages by removing the principal obstacle thereto, viz.: the fear of having offspring before the parents are in a pecuniary condition to support, rear, and educate them. And,
Secondly, By inducing early marriages, seductions would become less frequent, and consequently prostitution, comparatively, become extinct.
Socially. Firstly. Young men, instead of seeking excitement and amusement in the intoxicating cup, gaming, night carousals, brothels, &c., acquiring habits of dissipation deadening alike to the keen, fresh susceptibilities belonging to youth—habits too, which often cling to them in after life, habits which, perhaps for ever destroy their health,—as tainting their constitution with some foul and incurable disease,—would, with a view to early marriage, cultivate the social and domestic ties, while yet pure and uncontaminated by contact with the dissolute and vicious. And
Secondly, Young persons, even though with very limited means, would nevertheless marry, and by not becoming parents, be enabled, unitedly, to husband their resources, with the view to the bettering their condition pecuniarily; in the meantime, and in the days of their youth, enjoying all those social endearments which each sex finds in the society of the other, where reciprocity of views, interests, and feelings exists. So too, those in middling circumstances would marry early, merely deferring an increase of family until they will have established themselves in some business, ere the constant accumulating expenses of an increasing family encroach upon, or eat up their small capital, the immediate incurrence of which thus early would, perhaps, for ever destroy the means for the comfortable provision of themselves, as also the future welfare of their children.
Physiologically. By inducing early marriages, the dire evils arising from promiscuous sexual intercourse with the tainted or diseased, will gradually disappear, and in a generation or two we would find springing up, in the place of the present sickly, puny race, a healthy, robust, and pure generation.
In regard to the morality of preventing conception it is contended that everything which tends to the amelioration of mankind, to improve their condition physically, morally, and socially, or equalize their condition pecuniarily, cannot be immoral. That the instinct of reproduction should be, like our other appetites and passions, subject to the control of reason,—that when the gratification of this instinct results in evil effects either to ourselves or to our offspring, or even to society—if such evil can be prevented, it is the obligation of morality that it should be.
It is contended, then, that the use of a preventive to conception will make men and women rational, reflecting, thinking beings, regardful alike of their own welfare and the welfare of their offspring. That it will banish poverty, vice and profligacy, by enabling the poor to improve their pecuniary condition and thus engendering habits of frugality, reflection and economy, which the prospect of future competency is so calculated to inspire. Vice so often springing from despair and hopeless poverty will disappear, because the children, by reason of the competence and moral structure of the parents, will not in infancy be thrust upon the world to mingle with the depraved and the licentious. Sexual profligacy and licentiousness will be checked, as early marriages become more prevalent and universal, as there then will exist no reasons as now, why two persons, attached to each other, should not marry, refraining merely from becoming parents. Dishonorable advances therefore would be spurned, seductions thus have no existence, and prostitution, the offspring of seduction, would be unknown, and even the ravages of that disease, engendered by promiscuous sexual intercourse, now carrying off its tens of thousands, transmitting its pestiferous poison to thousands yet unborn, would entirely disappear.
The able author thus concludes his views:
“And now let my readers pause. Let them review the various arguments I have placed before them. Let them reflect how intimately the instinct of which I treat is connected with the social welfare of society. Let them bear in mind, that just in proportion to its social influence, is it important that we should know how to control and govern it; that when we obtain such control, we may save ourselves—and, what we ought to prize much more highly, may save our companions and our offspring, from suffering or misery; that, by such knowledge, the young may form virtuous connexions, instead of becoming profligates or ascetics; that, by it, early marriage is deprived of its heaviest consequences, and seduction of its sharpest sting; that, by it, man may be saved from moral ruin, and woman from desolating dishonor; that by it the first pure affections may be soothed and satisfied, instead of being thwarted or destroyed—let them call to mind all this, and let them say, whether the possession of such control be not a blessing to man.
“As to the cry which prejudice may raise against it as being unnatural, it is just as unnatural (and no more so) as to refrain, in a sultry summer’s day, from drinking, perhaps, more than a pint of water at a draught, which prudence tells us is enough, while inclination would bid us drink a quart. All thwarting of any human wish or impulse may, in one sense, be called unnatural; it is not, however, ofttimes the less prudent and proper on that account.”
As to the practical efficacy of this preventive, the experience of France, where it is universally practised, might suffice in proof. We know, at this moment, several married persons who have told us, that, after having had as many children as they thought prudent, they had for years employed it with perfect success. For the satisfaction of our readers, we will select some instances.
A few weeks since, a respectable and very intelligent father of a family, about thirty-five years of age, who resides west of the mountains, called at our office. Conversation turned on the present subject, and we expressed to him our conviction that this preventive was effectual. He told us he could speak from personal experience. He had married young, and soon had three children. These he could support in comfort, without running into debt or difficulty; but, the price of produce sinking in his neighborhood, there did not appear a fair prospect of supporting a large family. In consequence, he and his wife determined to limit their offspring to three. They have accordingly used it for seven or eight years; have had no more children; and have been rewarded for their prudence by finding their situation and prospects improving every year.
The next communication from which we shall copy is from a young man of excellent character, living in a neighboring state, and now one of the conductors of a popular periodical. After suggesting to us the propriety of re-publishing some English works now out of print, he proceeds as follows:
“Had I not been addressing you upon another subject, I should not have ventured to obtrude on you my small need of approbation; but I cannot let slip this opportunity of endeavoring to express how much I feel indebted to you for its publication.
“To know how I am so indebted, it is necessary you should also know something of my situation in life; and when it is described, it is perhaps a description of the situation of two-thirds of the journeymen mechanics of this country.
“I have been married nearly three years, and am the father of two children. Having nothing to depend upon but my own industry, you will readily acknowledge that I had reason to look forward with at least some degree of disquietude to the prospect of an increasing family and reduced wages: apparently the inevitable lot of the generality of working men.
“I had apparently nothing left but to let matters take their own course, when your valuable work made its appearance.
“I read it; and a new scene of existence seemed to open before me. I found myself, in this all-important matter, a free agent, and, in a degree, the arbiter of my own destiny. I could have said to you as Selim said to Hassan,—‘