The laws of sex

RATIONAL SEX SERIES

BI-SEXUAL LOVE, THE HOMOSEXUAL
NEUROSIS, by Dr. William Steckel,
Authorized Translation by James 8.
Van Teslaar

SEX AND DREAMS, THE LANGUAGE or
DREAMS, by Dr. William Steckel, Avr
thorized Translation by Jamet 8.
Van Teslaar

SEX AND THE SENSES, by Jam** S. Van,
Teslaar

SEX REPRESSION, INHIBITION AND FRI-
GIDITY, by James S. Van Teslaar

THE LAWS OF SEX, by Edith H. Hooker

MOTHERHOOD, by H. W. Long, M.D.

CHILDREN BY CHANCE OR BY CHOICE, 6^
William Hawley Smith

SEX IN PSYCHO-ANALYSIS, by S. Fe-
renczi, M.D.

HISTORY AND PRACTICE OF PSYCH ANALY-
SIS, by Poul Bjerre, M.D.

TEMPERAMENT AND SEX, by Walter
Heaton

SEX AND SOCIETY, by W. I. Thomas

RICHARD G. BADGER, PUBLISHER, BOSTON

MICROFILMED BY

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

LIBRARY
MASTER NEGATIVE NO.:

THE LAWS OF SEX

BY

EDITH HOUGHTON HOOKER

BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER

THE GORHAM PRESS

COPYUOHT, 1921, BY HlCHARD G. BADOEB

All Rights Reserved

ai

Made in the United States of America

The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.

TO

D. R. H.

PREFACE

Some seventeen years ago when I was a student in the
Johns Hopkins University Medical School, I became greatly
interested in the problem of the Social Evil. Individual
cases in the gynaecological clinic aroused my sympathy and
indignation, and I resolved to study the problem later
and to do what I could toward ameliorating conditions.
By a fortunate circumstance, Dr. Hooker was also vitally
interested in the problem. After our marriage we lived
abroad for some time, and with the generous help of Dr.
A. Blaschko and Dr. Max Marcuse carried on some in-
teresting investigations in Berlin, which later led to our
founding in Baltimore a home for unmarried mothers and
their children called the Guild of St. George. We learned
much from this venture, particularly that the solution of
the problem depended intrinsically, not upon the reform of
women, but upon the reform of men. So convinced did we
become of this fact that we soon turned our efforts toward
the emancipation of women, and temporarily gave over the
more direct attack upon the problem of the social evil.

Case after case proved beyond a doubt that until women
had direct political power within their hands the double
standard of morals upon which the whole problem rested
would be unassailable. Now that this first step toward
progress has been achieved we turn back to our original
interest, for we believe that the enfranchisement of women
has released the power essential to a successful, constructive
campaign against sexual promiscuity and its attendant
infections. The material presented in this book represents
the accumulated results of about seventeen years' labor on

7

8 Preface

the part of both Dr. Hooker and myself. We have thought
the thing through together, and his name should properly
appear upon the title page.

We present the book at this time chiefly for the in-
formation of the large group of American women who
desire to improve moral conditions, but who do not know
how to turn their newly won political power to this end.
Our hope is that it may arouse an optimistic interest in
the immediate solubility of the problem, and help to bring
fiome to women a realization of their deep responsibility
as the natural protectors of the racial life.

Much appreciation is due to Mr. George E. Worthington
of the American Social Hygiene Association for assistance
in preparing the chapter on the present statutes; to Dr.
J. T. Geraghty for his criticism of the chapter on the
venereal diseases, and to Dr. Frank E. Lillie for the use
of his valuable paper regarding the fertilization problem.

EDITH HOUGHTON HOOKER.
Upland, May, 1921.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I THE PRESENT ANARCHY 13

II THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE 28

III THE ORIGIN AND CAUSES OF PROSTITUTION ... 49

IV THE DUAL NATURE OF SEX 78

V THE ETHICAL ASPECTS OF BIRTH CONTROL ... 89

VI THE PRESENT STATUTES 114

VII THE STANDARDIZATION OF SEXUAL CONDUCT . . 170

VIII THE VENEREAL DISEASES 187

IX FALLACIES OF THE PRESENT METHODS OF CONTROL 215

X NEO-NAPOLEONIC REGULATION 245

XI VENEREAL PROPHYLAXIS 259

XII THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF VENEREAL

DISEASES 292

XIII SEX AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION 312

XIV SOME CASE HISTORIES ........ 389

XV CONCLUSIONS 349

BIBLIOGRAPHY 367

INDEX 371

9

THE LAWS OF SEX

THE LAWS OF SEX

CHAPTEB, I

THE PRESENT ANARCHY

As one glances backward over the history of the human
race, the fact appears that the development of the social
order has been accomplished, seemingly regardless of the
purposeful will of man, by a process very similar to evolu-
tion. At various epochs mankind has been brought face
to face with certain definite problems upon whose solution
further racial progress was essentially dependent. Seen
in retrospect the forces leading to these epochal changes
are in many instances singularly clear, but seen in prospect
they have usually been but dimly comprehended.

This failure to grasp the significance of essential socio-
logical changes has led to the method of progress through
chaos, as for example in the French Revolution or the Civil
War in America. Action has grappled with reaction with
the result that the survival of the fittest has been achieved.
In the twentieth century looking backward it is not difficult
to discern the trend of events which made Democracy the
inevitable culmination of the eighteenth century. Yet at
that time men of balanced intellect regarded the revolution-
ists as mad and dangerous fanatics, and looked upon popu-
lar government as an impracticable and visionary scheme.
Fettered by prejudice and custom, these men refused to
see the obvious lines of racial development which led irre-
sistably to one conclusion. Thus on the continent the

13

14 The Laws of Sex

revolution was deprived of the quality of leadership which
might have averted much bloodshed and suffering.

The danger of permitting prejudice and custom to take
the place of reason in times of fundamental change is well
indicated by the contrast between Great Britain's and
America's treatment of the problem of negro slavery. In
Great Britain in the nineteenth century, men realized that
the time had come when the institution of slavery was no
longer essential to, nor compatible with, civilization. In the
days of Plato, even in the ideal republic, slavery was taken
for granted, for at that time human hands were required to
do the work which machines now do. The arts and sciences
could not be developed by men degraded by abject toil,
hence the sacrifice of the slave class to the progress of
civilization, was, in the absence of machinery, inevitable.

The clear recognition by the people of England of the
forces leading to the liberation of the slaves made it prac-
tically possible for this momentous change to be accom-
plished in the British Empire by methods others than those
employed in America during the Civil War. Over and over
again, human experience has proven that reason may be an
efficient substitute for the sword and that where compre-
hension takes the place of prejudice, progress may be pur-
chased at a comparativey small price.

In the treatment of the Social Evil which appears to be
dawning on the horizon as one of the central problems of
the twentieth century, a thorough understanding of the
complex factors involved in human sexual life is basic to
rational progress. Since in all development the future
grows out of the past, a comprehension of the underlying
forces which have brought the sexual life of the race thus
far forward is of vast importance in outlining a program
for further action. Certain instincts and ideals with regard
to sex have already been developed in the human race, and
these must be given due consideration. Customs such as

The Present Anarchy 15

marriage, premarital chastity for women and promiscuity
for men, have been accepted over such a long period of
time that they have become part of the conscience of the
race, and conduct is at this epoch directed in accordance
with these inherited criteria. The distinction that is made
by the mass of mankind between unchastity on the part of
a daughter, and unchastity on the part of a son, indicates
with a rare degree of vividness the extent to which custom
controls the average mind. The unchaste son and the un-
chaste daughter are obviously guilty of precisely the same
act, yet the parent and the public intuitively discriminate
with regard to the moral obliquity of their conduct. The
man who with no qualms of conscience indulges in extra
marital relationships, feels himself morally degraded if he
is forced to marry an unchaste girl, yet the average woman,
despite her virtue, feels singularly little chagrin at her
mate's premarital infidelity. This curiously irrational cir-
cumstance is summed up in the law which makes pre-
marital unchastity on the part of a woman ground for
annulment of the marriage if the husband was in ignorance
of the fact, but which does not operate in the reverse
direction. Since the term "Social Evil" is used to define
the condition of disordered sexual relationships that exists
outside of marriage, and since the epidemiology of venereal
disease shows that the breeding ground of the spirochete and
the gonococcus lies in sexual promiscuity, it is clear that
the solution, both of the problem of the Social Evil, and
of Venereal Disease, is intimately associated with the reor-
ganization of the sexual life of the race. This cannot be
accomplished independently of the past, for the forces which
have been at work for centuries are not to be peremptorily
set aside by verbal theories. The ideals which have grown
up and which have justified themselves by natural selection
are presumably ideals that will continue to contribute to-
ward the development of the sexual life of the race. If

16 The Laws of Sex

reason is to assist in this process, it must be through
the strengthening of the customs and prejudices found to
lead to the most complete development of the sex life of
man, and through the elimination of base standards which
tend to degrade and thwart the sexual instincts of humanity.

At the present time a condition of anarchy obtains in the
realm of sex. No comprehensive system of law exists even
on the statute books for the maintenance of sexual order.
This fact is perhaps best indicated by the "Unwritten
Law" which is frequently invoked to cover cases where the
public conscience feels that justice cannot be achieved
through the enforcement of any existing statute. It is also
exemplified by the anomalous condition which permits
monogamy and promiscuity to exist side by side in the
same state. While the public realizes that human nature
has not yet reached a stage of perfection that would insure
justice under an anarchistic regime in any other province
of life, it still fails even to write down on its statute books
a system of sexual law designed to insure right living in
this realm. The result is that the ordinary concepts of
justice and of mutual responsibility which govern the social
order under civilization may be safely abrogated by the
individual in his sex life without his even being conscious
that he has violated a social or moral law. The average
boy who sees his comrades indulging their sex instincts
through promiscuity is thus robbed of any social standard
whereby he can measure the effects of their conduct on the
racial life, and is left wholly without adequate direction
for his own sexual existence. The experience of the race
is of no practical advantage to him in ordering his own
sex life, for it is not written down in terms that he can
understand.

It may legitimately be assumed that the same general
principles of law and order that operate throughout the
various phases of communal life are appropriate as well in
the realm of sex. It is not reasonable to suppose that

The Present Anarchy 17

there is one kind of justice in regard to property or
contracts, and another kind of justice in regard to sex.

Law and order, in the broad sense, predicates a condi-
tion of mutual responsibility and understanding among
the various social units, and acts to insure equal justice to
every individual. In the realm of sex, at the present time,
law and order is conspicuously absent, for mutual responsi-
bility in sex relationships is not required by the state, and
the standard of conduct upheld for various individuals is
widely divergent. Before material progress can be antici-
pated in this difficult field, the human race must as a group
decide along what lines the sexual life of the race is to be
ordered. It is idle for one faction to present measures for
the control of venereal disease based upon the premise that
promiscuity is inevitable, while another faction proposes a
program designed to limit sexual relationships to mon-
ogamy. Such a conflict in objectives results in grave in-
justice and defeats the very purpose which both groups
have in view. If promiscuity is to be accepted as a funda-
mental fact in human sexual life, as the adherents of
medical prophylaxis would seem to believe, certain read-
justments in sexual ethics are indispensable in order to
minimize venereal disease, and to achieve justice. If the
sexual demand of the male is so potent as to necessitate
intercourse regardless of marriage, society must learn to
respect the woman who participates in the consummation of
this supposed law. It is obviously out of line with justice
to condemn a woman to the severest censure of which
society is capable merely for lending herself to the abso-
lute need of the opposite sex. There is no other human
relationship in which both parties are so clearly on a par
as in sexual intercourse. Whether the individuals be male
or female, it is plain that ethically they cannot be other
than equal in the sexual act. It is inconceivable that since
sexual intercourse involves two individuals of opposite sexes,
the act which is permissible on the part of one should by ra-

18 The Laws of Sex

tional beings be regarded as gravely anti-social on the part
of the other. Such an opinion indicates a complete abroga-
tion of both justice and common sense.

If promiscuity for men is to be accepted, promiscuity for
a considerable number of women must be accepted as well,
for men cannot have sexual intercourse alone. Moreover,
in justice to the offspring, the stigma attaching to illegiti-
macy must be removed, for it is clearly unethical for the
community to penalize a guiltless child for his participation
in a sequence of natural law.

With regard to the treatment of venereal disease as well,
this revision of human sexual ethics is indispensable, for
while promiscuity is regarded as criminal on the part of
women, the man who associates intimately with these women
feels shame at the contact, and does not approach the medi-
cal problem with the matter of fact candor that the situation
requires.

In addition, the economic status of women and children
under a system of sexual promiscuity must, for the further-
ance of racial competence, be adjusted in a manner very
different from that which obtains under monogamy. Dur-
ing the child-bearing period women cannot in the main
compete successfully with men for their livelihood. Either
they must refuse to bear children, in which case the race
will suffer, or a system of maternity benefits and pensions
must be devised to meet their actual needs. Unless civiliza-
tion is permanently to discard its ethical ideals in the realm
of sex, it is plain that sexual promiscuity must be accepted,
or rejected for both sexes alike. To continue to demand
one standard of conduct for women and another for men,
is merely to perpetuate a system which is unjust and im-
practicable.

Upon this basis it is seen that the problem of the social
evil resolves itself into a very simple question. Is the sexual
life of the race to develop in the direction of promiscuity,
when both sexes shall be free to exercise their instincts with-

19

out regard to any form of marriage law, as is the case with*
men at the present time, or may a definite standardization
of sexual conduct be anticipated which will apply equally
to both men and women? Since justice demands that in-
dividuals, whether they be male or female, shall he beld
equally responsible for any given act, and since it is plain
that men and women participate equally in sexual inter-
course, it follows necessarily that justice can never be
achieved while society condones promiscuity on the part
of men, and penalizes it by social ostracism, and even jail
sentences when practised by women.

The choice between promiscuity and some sort of sexual
standardization such as is entailed in polygamy, polyandry,
or monogamy, must be made before the primary principle
of justice can come into operation in the sexual life of the
race. It is in this connection that the experience of the
race must be invoked to determine first what manner of
sexual conduct promises the best results for the race, and
second whether the social forces that focus on sex life but
which are independent of it will permit of its ordering in
any given direction. Just as it would be idle to devise a
theoretical physical world based upon the premise that
gravitation was inoperative, or the world flat, or 'that water
ran uphill, so in the province of morals, it is vain to devise
a system based upon unreal suppositions. The drama has
already been played to the end in the conflict between science
and religion. The early fathers of the church resented
the inroads of science upon dogma, and attempted by coer-
cion to maintain a physical universe out of accord with
reality. But they failed, as all other moralists will continue
to do as long as the world they construct is out of harmony
with natural laws.

Sex is the axis of the life of man. Around it turn all
of the other incidents of his existence. Sex determines the
actual germ plasm of which he is made, the color of his
skin, his eyes, his hair, his physique, his race, the inherent

20 The Lawt of Sex

quality of his mind and heart. The adult man in any
generation is but the consummation of the sexual choice
made by an endless chain of male and female progenitors.
Environment and apparent chance have their part in his
molding, but just as environment cannot change wheat to
corn, or iris to roses, so external circumstances cannot
make a negro white or a defective mind normal. What sex
has bound together in the form of germ plasm, nothing but
death can put asunder.

Even after birth the validity of the sexual tie which
has brought his parents together is of great moment to the
child, for upon it depends the kind of home in which he
grows to adult years. The marked divergence between the
death rate among legitimate and illegitimate children is
in itself evidence of the present importance of the home.
As the youth approaches maturity, and his sexual impulses
expand, he himself faces the selection of a mate. Upon the
wisdom that he exercises in his choice depends much of his
happiness and comfort during adult life. An unhappy
marriage may crush his development and stultify his ideals,
while promiscuous relationships may break his health, and
rob him of the children who would otherwise bring interest
and security to his declining years. Thus, from birth to
death, sex is seen to be of paramount importance in the life
of man.

Sex is of all problems the most affirmative, and yet, in
the days that happily are gone, it has been approached by
the virtuous as something to be negated, to be denied.
Chastity and celibacy have been regarded as the highest
virtues in sex, and the lack of a constructive ethical system
for the right use of sex has led and now leads to the abuse
of this supreme function. Fortunately, young people come
into this world imbued with the idea that there is joy in
sex, and when their elders counsel repression instead of
right direction, they sense the counterfeit and follow where
their natures lead them. This results in each generation

The Present Anarchy 21

living over the errors of the past, for since the experience
of the race has not been synchronized into law, there are
no sign posts to warn the young of pitfalls.

In addition, discussion has been taboo, and education even
in the normal physiology of sex has been supposed to be
too dangerous to be attempted. Instinct, prejudice and
ignorance have been the sole guardians of sex, and it should
cause no wonder that under their guidance chaos has been
the result. The value of law as an instrument toward
education, has been consistently overlooked, and promiscuity
and monogamy, unequally yoked together, have made a
mockery of sexual ethics. The ancient and untrue dogma
that "men cannot be legislated into virtue" has placed sex
beyond the pale, and has permitted men and women a range
of irresponsibility in matters of sex that would not be
tolerated in any other branch of human affairs. The fact
that the true function of law under civilization is deter-
rence, not revenge, has been forgotten, with the result that
no rational examination of the natural laws governing sex
has even been attempted.

People have been content with instinct in sex as the
arbiter of virtue, and, regardless of justice, they have
lynched the alleged rapist with the utmost ferocity while
they have permitted married men to seduce young girls
without exacting any penalty. The state has enacted cer-
tain statutes with regard to monogamous marriage, and has
then irrationally failed to set up adequate defenses for this
institution. Adultery and promiscuity have been connived
at, but divorce has been made so difficult as to be in many
cases impossible. Venereal persons are, without any re-
strictions, given licenses to marry even though their names
are on record in the archives of the Board of Health. Since
it is known that the marriage of an individual infected with
venereal disease may entail the death, mutilation or steri-
lization of his mate, and since the evil effect of venereal
disease on rising generations in the form of blindness, de-

22 The Lamt of Sex

generacy and still-birth is recognized, this license to con-
taminate wedlock is clearly an official crime of untold mag-
nitude. Abortion has been made a penitentiary offense,
but on the other hand the state has failed to exact paternal
responsibility for the illegitimate child, or to make other
adequate provision for his welfare, with the result that
thousands upon thousands of these children have died soon
after birth, yielding no asset to the state except their own
and their mother's suffering. Giving information with re-
gard to birth control has been made a felony, and yet
many married people employ contraceptive measures, and
most physicians give such information willingly. It is well
known that most of the young girls who are sent to reform
schools are committed for sexual offenses, and yet the re-
form and penal institutions of the state show no record
of the men and boys who must of necessity have participated
in these sames offenses. A single day in any juvenile court
will show instances of girls brought in and convicted of
some sexual offense with the boy or man held merely as the
state's witness. The male co-partner is immediately freed,
despite the likelihood that he will involve still other girls.
The court and the public, relying on their instincts, feel
that the offense of immorality on the part of a girl is very
different from the same offense on the part of a man or boy,
and justice is rendered accordingly.

The same situation obtains with regard to prostitution.
The man pays his dollar or so to a prostitute, indulges in
illicit intercourse, and goes on his way without regret. The
community feels little if any resentment at his conduct.
But the woman whom he utilized has thereby become an
offender against the law, and if apprehended may be sum-
marily sent to jail. Reason has been so far abrogated in
the realm of sex, that men of good intellect cannot sense
the anomaly of their conduct when they recommend the use
of the prophylactic packet or the prophylactic station.
They cannot see that the state's connivance at vice predi-

The Present Anarchy 23

cates its continuance, for they have become accustomed, to
think in terms of the double standard and habit is stronger
than reason.

The consequence of this instinctive treatment of the prob-
lem of sex is the existence of an unrelated code of sexual
laws and customs, designed from the outset to secure in-
justice to the virtuous, and penalization to the innocent.
The guilty are insured comparative immunity under the
law, and a process is devised to foster, with the aid of the
science of medicine, a system of sexual ethics which is known
to be subversive of health and antagonistic to racial
progress.

The marriage relation is practically the only use of
sex which is heavily penalized in the case of men, for only
in legal marriage is the man required to live up to his
sexual obligations. He may have a dozen children outside
of wedlock and not even know of the existence of any of
them, but if he has one child in wedlock he is rigidly required
to provide for its support. He may have sexual relations
with a score or more of girls ranging upward in age from
sixteen years or even younger, but if he does not marry
them he is not called upon to insure their maintenance. If
he marries one woman and then makes the same legal con-
cession to another, he is pronounced guilty of bigamy, and
is sent to the penitentiary, but if he omits the ceremony
he is usually not interfered with by the state. If he takes
unto himself a wife and later finds that he cannot live hap-
pily with her, he is denied the right to break his bonds ex-
cept under great duress and scathing publicity, but if he
can persuade the same woman to live with him independently
of marriage vows, he may depart at any moment his dis-
position dictates. Moreover, he is required to provide
alimony only if his previous conduct has been so virtuous
as to involve compliance with the marriage law.

This reversal of the usual mode of standardizing conduct
is due to the fact that under civilization the laws regarding

£4 Tlie Laws of Sex

sex have heretofore been dictated solely by desire and by
the right of the stronger, and have been but fragmentary
related to the natural laws inherent in the sex relationship.
Men have desired chaste wives that their paternity might
be indubitable and their homes be insured against the ad-
vances of other men. They have also for financial or other
reasons wished to secure protection for their daughters or
other dependent female relatives. At the same time they
have desired complete license for themselves in the enjoy-
ment of passion. Since until recently practically all of
the political and economic power has lain within their hands,
men have been able to enforce their pronouncements upon
the opposite sex without question. The advance of women
toward political and economic independence has shifted the
balance of power in their direction, and now for the first
time since the dawn of organized society women find them-
selves capable of reassuming their natural position in the
realm of sex.

As with the slave, the shackles dropped from his wrists
when civilization no longer needed a subject class, so with
woman emancipation followed the organization of the work
of the home to a point where the sacrifice of her personal
abilities and ambitions was no longer vitally needed by the
race. Throughout the development of the social order, it
appears that each group that has achieved liberty has
brought a special gift of knowledge to the commonwealth.
Ideal Democracy itself is nothing more nor less than the
sum of human knowledge embodied in such form as to make
articulate the needs and wishes of the people. Cast out one
group and all the others lack the intimate knowledge of the
special needs this one group represented.

The body politic is like the human organism, an entity
composed of myriad units, individuals or cells, all mutually
dependent and all united through a common mechanism which
in the individual is the central nervous system, and which in
the body politic is government. The isolation of any large

The Present Anarchy 25

group of unit factors from the cooperative mechanism
predicates a corresponding reduction of efficiency in the
organism itself. Similarly the addition of any new group
means a proportionate increase in the power and sensibility
of the whole.

The special gift of knowledge which through their emanci-
pation women as a class bring to the commonwealth, is
their peculiar experience in matters of sex. Heretofore
men have attempted to solve the problem of sex strictly from
their own point of view, and since owing to the physiology
of reproduction sex is to men and to women a singularly
different thing, the treatment of the problem has in the past
lacked balance and true direction. To men sex is largely
a matter of mating, to women it is preeminently a matter
of life. From men sex demands little if any physical sacri-
fice, from women it may demand the supreme sacrifice —
death.

Romantic literature, as it has come from the hands of
men, pictures love in conflict with the laws of society; ro-
mantic literature, as it will one day be written, will show
that love is synonymous with the highest social law. Love
in the past, male love, has been a matter of youth, of the
springtime; in the future love will include all of the ages
of man. Passionate youth, fecund maturity, the ripe
harvest of achieved desires, and finally the sweet promise of
another spring bringing revivifying hope amid the snows of
winter.

The problem of sex is the problem of life, enduring,
chaiiging, varying with the years as they pass by. The
sun in the firmament of youth illumining the heavens and
the earth and the far reaches of the human soul, creator
of art, handmaiden of the muses, proof of the divine order
prevailing in the universe. Glad comfort of maturity
warming the soul to effort and ambition, changing despair
to hope, failure to victory, touching the sordid common-
places of life with golden fingers, making blind eyes see the

26 The Laws of Sex

splendid vision of a conscious realized humanity. In later
years a star to guide by, leading the voyager true over the
long and difficult way, drawing the eyes heavenward from
life's pain and disillusionment, finally bringing him home
to peace, tranquillity and well-earned comfort.

Sex in its affirmative aspects may readily be seen to
achieve full fruition only in response to certain natural
laws. Negative precepts while of value in warning the young
of transitory danger, are insufficient guides towards com-
plete development. Negative virtues in sex are like nega-
tive virtues in the rest of life, useful only in proportion as
they result in positive benefits for the individual or the race.
The ascetic ideal of repression for the sake of repression
appears in all its vanity in the realm of sex, for the consistent
repression of the sexual instincts would lead inevitably to the
destruction of coming generations, and the solution of the
problem of living would be lost in racial death.

The lack of any firm consensus of opinion with regard to
the right use of sex, compatible with accepted ethics, is funda-
mentally responsible for the wrong direction that has here-
tofore prevailed in this sphere of life. Freedom in matters
of sex has meant license, not liberty, and license here as
elsewhere has led to abuse and irresponsibility, with the
result that mankind has taken refuge in the most arbitrary
restrictions, elevated celibacy to the pinnacle of sexual
virtue, denied legal divorce to persons who were incompatible,
regarded children as a sort of expiation for the carnal sin
of lust. Synchronously each rising generation, coming
clean from the hands of time, has recognized the inherent
value of sex and has broken the loose bonds imposed upon
it by a dying order only in its turn to become disillusioned
by abortive sex experiences. With silent lips and with
the dark light of thwarted hope in their own eyes, parents
have watched their children embark on the wild waters of
adolescence without compass and without helm, and think-
ing of sex as sin have held their peace, regarding ignorance

The Present Anarchy 27

alone as innocence. Sensing shame in their own lives,
parents have not dared to speak the truth fearing lest
knowledge of the underlying facts of nature should lead
their children to lose respect for parenthood. Thus the
youth of the world has been denied recourse to the sexual
experience of the race, and each generation has been forced
to pay again the tragic price of knowledge. In the spiritual
world, as in the physical world, the explorations of mankind
must be properly recorded if ever a map is to be constructed
to guide the vessel of the future.

The rocks and shoals beneath the smiling waters where
men have lost their lives, must be marked down, and the
good rivers and protecting bays must be charted on a per-
manent record, or much of the peril and the pain of past
explorations will be lost to future mariners. As in earlier
days men made a theoretical map of the universe showing
the world flat and apportioning the space above to heaven
and that beneath to hell, so today they plot out the moral
universe in total disregard of science and experience. And
then they bid the young to sail according to their fictitious
chart, and find amazement in the fact that they so seldom
come to port in safety.

The great need of the present is to analyze the past ex-
perience of the race in sexual matters, and to derive from
actual, not theoretical data, the moral boundaries of human
sexual conduct. Then to put down in current language, such
as law, the information thus secured, so that rising genera-
tions ifcay embark upon their quest with a full knowledge
of the waters and ways already traversed by humanity.

By this means and by no other the experience of the
race can be conserved, and the pain and disillusionment of
generations past be adequately utilized to guide the foot-
steps of the future. Error is a corollary of experience, but
the repetition of error, can by the right use of reason, be
avoided.

CHAPTER H

THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE

The first essential toward the constructive analysis of
the sexual experience of the race is an unbiased and scientific
attitude of mind toward the relation between the sexes.
Preconceived ideas of right and wrong prejudice the judg-
ment and lead to hypotheses which may be out of line with
the facts determined.

Current custom differentiates sex relations into two gen-
eral groups, those which take place in wedlock, which it
calls moral, and those which take place outside wedlock,
which it calls immoral. Since morality is defined as "the
quality of an action which renders it good," society must
first ascertain whether the present marriage code accords
with this definition before it will be justified in making
wedlock the sole criterion for sexual virtue. The deriva-
tion of the word moral from the Latin noun mos, moris,
meaning custom, indicates that in some instances habitual
conduct may be confused with moral conduct. It is an
outstanding fact that morals are always in a state of flux;
they change as society changes, for that which was good
for the race under a certain social order may become detri-
mental when the order changes. For example, among the
early Hebrews, polygamy was regarded as a wholly moral
institution. David and Solomon and the other great Biblical
characters had many wives and concubines, yet to-day the
Jews uphold monogamy and regard polygamy and concu-
binage as highly immoral customs. The association of the
word moral with any kind of human conduct merely implies

28

The History of Marriage 29

that at a not too distant epoch such conduct was found
to bear good fruits in racial happiness.

In order to understand the relation of marriage to the
sexual life of the race it is essential to comprehend both
its practical significance and its derivation.

Until recently most ethnologists have maintained that
man lived originally in a state of promiscuity and that
marriage was superimposed upon the race as a result of
the development of moral ideas. Chief among the exponents
of this hypothesis are Lubbock, Morgan, Bachofen, McLen-
nan, Bastian, Giraud-Toulon, Lippert, Post, Wilken and
Kohler.

These men base their opinion upon the assumption that
prehistoric man lived in a group or horde in which the
sexes mingled freely without respect to marriage. They
believe that the horde preceded the family in racial develop-
ment, and that the children originally belonged to the clan
and not to the parents.

They bring forward the custom of tracing lineage through
the maternal strain as proof that even definite knowledge
of paternity was wanting.

In Das Mutterrecht, by Bachofen, which appeared in
1861, an effort is made to adduce two types of evidence in
support of the hypothesis of promiscuity. First, notices in
ancient and modern writings of savage races supposed to
live in a state of promiscuity, and second, survival customs
which a^e alleged to revert to an era when marriage was
not observed. The main basis of the argument is the casual
observations of voyagers, ancient and modern, as to the
habits of peoples with whose language, even, they were unac-
quainted, and customs such as the "jus primae noctis," which
probably represents merely an abuse of power on the part
of a priest or overlord. At most the evidence adduced could
but lead to the theory of group marriage, which is itself
far removed from actual promiscuity.

Bachofen maintains that marriage was instituted by

30 The Laws of Sex

women, who came by degrees to resent promiscuity and
who set up matriarchates, in which the power of women
was supreme. In these communities he asserts the relation
between the sexes was elevated to a religious plane and
marriage was enforced under stringent regulations.

Bachofen's argument is practically invalidated by the ab-
sence of reliable evidence of communities in which women
exercised final authority. While such communities may
have existed in isolated instances, Bachofen fails to produce
convincing proof that they formed any general stage in
human development.

Much of the difference of opinion with regard to mar-
riage and promiscuity centers in the lack of any clean-cut
understanding of what marriage really signifies.

Lord Avebury says scornfully, "Westermarck tells us the
first traces of marriage 'are found among the Chelonia'
(reptiles). He might have gone further and included in-
sects (white ants, etc.)."1

Lord Avebury's definition of marriage is that of "an ex-
clusive relation of one or more men to one or more women,
based on custom, recognized and supported by public opin-
ion, and where law exists, by law."

Westermarck defines marriage as "a more or less durable
connection between male and female lasting beyond the mere
act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring."2

Kant introduces the idea of life-long association between
the sexes as being fundamental to the concept of human
marriage.3

McLennan says: "My hypothesis is in outline as fol-
lows: The primitive groups were, or were by their mem-
bers, when consanguinity was first thought of, assumed to
be all of one stock. Marriage was at first unknown."4

1 Lord Avebury, 1911. Marriage, Totemum and Religion.
1 Edward Westermarck. History of Hitman Carriage.

* Kant. Lie Netaphysic der Sit ten.

* McLennan. Studies in Ancient History.

The History of Marriage 31

Thus he virtually supports Lord Avebury's hypothesis of
"communal marriage," though without granting the name.

The proponents of the hypothesis of promiscuity differ
considerably among themselves as to the origin of marriage
— some attributing it, as does Lord Avebury, to exogamy,
when marriage by capture first introduced the idea of the
husband's property rights in the wife, and others believing
that marriage developed as a moral idea originally sup-
ported by the matriarchate and later superimposed upon
the group through the mandate of some great ruler.

Edward von Mayer points to man as the true creator
of the family and asserts that rape, marriage by capture and
marriage by purchase marked the first limitations of sexual
promiscuity.5

From this point of view marriage appears to be a purely
artificial institution, having no biological base other than
the predatory instinct of man which led him to value the
woman he captured as his chattel. Regarded at first vir-
tually as a slave, the altruism of man is supposed by this
school to have gradually invested the wife with some digni-
ties and prerogatives of her own.

In support of this theory ancient legends are adduced
attributing the introduction of marriage to some great
king or rule,r. In Mahabharata, the Indian poem, it says
that formerly "women were unconfined, and moved about
at their pleasure, independent. Though, in their youthful
innocence, they went astray from their husbands, they were
guilty of no offense, for such was the rule in early times."6

The great ruler Swetaketu is supposed to have put an
end to this license by the institution of marriage. In China
Emperor Fou-hi performed a similar function, as did
Kekrops in Greece and Menes among the ancient Egyp-

5 Edward von Mayer. Die Liebensgesetze der Kultur.
9 Muir. Original Sanskrit Textt.

32 The Laws of Sex

tians.7 Njavvis and Attjis are hailed in song by the Lap-
landers and to them are ascribed the institution of the rites
of matrimony.8

When the Sun God and the God of War and the other
mythological deities and kings are recalled, who were sup-
posed to have assumed unto their majesty the powers of
nature, it can come as no surprise that in primitive times
the institution of marriage was ascribed to some superman.
Childish minds always tend to invoke the supernatural in
explanation of vital phenomena, as even today man regards
marriage as of sacramental nature, owing its origin to a
mandate of God; it is not a thing to be reasoned about,
to be regarded coldly as fit matter for reform or legisla-
tion, for it has been handed down, ready made, by divinity
and cannot be questioned without sacrilege. The timidity of
politicians and churchmen evinced at the mere suggestion
of tampering with the marriage code, and the professional
and political ostracism involved even in righteous divorce
actions indicate the supernatural trend of public opinion
in this realm. A man may remain in his profession or be
elected to public office readily enough if he is known by
other men to be immoral, but woe unto him if he has been
divorced or trapped in bigamy.

Seriously to suppose that the association of marriage
with some remote or mythical personage constitutes proof
that marriage was invoked by artificial means is to dis-
count all of the teachings of ethnology. As well believe
that Prometheus stole the sacred fire as to give credence
to the legends of Fou-hi or Menes or Swetaketu.

As Westermarck points out, the existence of these fables
is good evidence of the natural rather than the artificial
origin of matrimony, for, as fire, storm, war and pestilence
being natural phenomena are explained by their respective

TGoguet. The Origin of Laws, Arts and Sciences.
*v. Diiben. Om Lappland och Lcvpporne.

The History of Marriage 38

legends, so marriage, being vital to the race, is surrounded
by a wealth of superstition.

The variance in the concept of marriage between the
proponents and opponents of primitive promiscuity is engen-
dered in some measure by confusion of the rites of matrimony
with the facts of sexual union.

Lord Avebury's scorn of Prof. Westermarck's definition
of marriage is but the corollary of his British respect for the
formalities associated with the relationship between the sexes.
To trace marriage to the reptiles or the birds would in
the nature of the case appear grotesque to one imbued
with the importance of the essential rites and ceremonies.

Public opinion today follows the same bias, though with
less rigidity than formerly, and overlooks the facts of sexual
life as a result of fixation upon the ceremony.

Treated at first only as a probable hypothesis, many
writers came by degrees to regard primitive promiscuity as
a demonstrated fact, although as Westermarck says : "There
is not a shred of genuine evidence for the notion that pro-
miscuity ever formed a general stage in the social history
of mankind."

As a result of their positive assertions unsubstantiated
by adequate evidence, a number of investigators came for-
ward toward the end of the last century with criticisms
of the hypothesis of promiscuity. Building upon the re-
searches of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, these men
have shown that the great balance of ethnological evidence
lends itself to the theory that among primitive peoples mar-
riage and not promiscuity was the established order for sex
relationships.

The more modern school of ethnologists represented by
Edward Westermarck, Sir Henry Maine, and G. E. Howard
of the University of Chicago, claim a definite biological
base for the institution of marriage. Howard in the History
of Matrimonial Institutions, which appeared in 1904, sub-

84> The Laws of Sex

divides the argument against sexual promiscuity into three
parts: (1) The Zoological; (2) the Physiological, and (3)
the Psychological.

In a very convincing manner he shows that the measure
of sex differentiation conforms generally throughout the
animal kingdom to the degree of development of any given
species. In the lowest orders little differentiation exists,
and here promiscuity obtains. Among the higher orders as
a result of the struggle for existence, the system of a divi-
sion of labor appears, and the provinces of the two sexes
become more sharply defined. Coincidently pairing occurs
as in the birds, the tortoise or the higher apes bringing to
light the first vestiges of monogamy. Howard stresses the
point that pairing is not exclusively dependent upon the
desire for sexual union, for the expression of this impulse
is too transitory in character to serve as a basis for long
association, especially among the mammals and prehistoric
man where a short mating season may be presupposed.
Among gorillas, for example, families consisting of the male
and female and two offspring are not unusual, which predi-
cates continued association between the adults long past
the brief mating time. Howard's concept of marriage is
broad but tenable, and conforms more or less to the proverb
of the Middle Ages, "Boire, manger, coucher, ensemble est
marriage ce me semble."

In connection with the physiological argument, Howard
is ably supported by Sir Henry Maine,9 who has brought
forward a vast amount of evidence indicating that promis-
cuous intercourse between the sexes results in infecundity,
and "infecundity amid perpetually belligerent savages im-
plies weakness and ultimate destruction." Doubtless the
germ plasm of those individuals who tended toward sexual
promiscuity and in whom the pairing instinct was weak,
became eliminated from the racial stock through their infer-
• Sir Henry Maine. Dissertations on Early Law and Custom.

The History of Marriage 35

tility, which for example among the negroes in America has
been found to result from sexual promiscuity.

In this connection reference may be made to the efforts
of Southern planters to bring their slaves to live together in
families in order to increase their fertility after the importa-
tion of slaves from Africa had been made illegal.

In his third subdivision, Howard presents what is doubt-
less the strongest argument against promiscuity, namely,
the psychical nature of man and the other mammals. Sexual
jealousy is an observable fact among all males of the higher
orders, many of the birds and the male quadrupeds being
equipped by nature to battle against their rivals, thus lead-
ing to the inference that sexual promiscuity is wholly un-
likely to persist in a state of nature.

As Mr. Darwin says, "Looking far enough back in the
stream of time, and judging from the social habits of man
as he now exists, the most probable view is that he aborigi-
nally lived in small communities, each with a single wife,
or if powerful, with several, whom he jealously guarded
against other men."10

In his epoch-making treatise on The History of Human
Marriage, Edward SVestermarck, Professor of Sociology in
the University of London, has conclusively shown that "it
is most unlikely that promiscuity ever prevailed at any stage
of human development." Westermarck traces the relation
between the sexes back through the savage and barbarous
races of man to the lower orders and finds that marriage
arose not as a result of an artificial morality but as the
fulfillment of a fundamental racial need, surviving the test
of time in accordance with the law of natural selection.
"Marriage," he says, "is derived from the family, not the
family from marriage."

Among the invertebrata where the preservation of the prog-
eny depends mainly upon chance, both the male and the

11 Darwin. The Descent of Mem.

36 The Laws of Sex

female are exempted from the care of the young. The
mother may provide for the protection of the eggs by de-
positing them in a sunny spot or covering them up or attach-
ing them to some suitable object, but in most cases she
never even sees her young. The male fulfills his parental
function through the act of propagation.11

"In the lowest classes of vertebrata," says Westermarck,
"parental care is likewise almost unheard of." Among the
fishes, for example, the selection of a suitable place for the
deposit of the eggs fulfills the parental duty. Many Teleo-
stei, however, form an exception and in these cases it is
generally the male who recognizes the parental obligation.
In certain species of Avius he carries the eggs about in his
pharynx.12

The reptiles sometimes form themselves into a curious
cone about the eggs and the female crocodiles and certain
aquatic snakes have been observed to carry their young
about with them.18

No durable relation between the sexes exists among the
lower vertebrata, for it rarely happens that both parents
jointly take care of their offspring.

The first vestiges of marriage are observed among the
Chelonia, which form from a zoological and an embryological
point of view a transition to the birds.

It is estimated that 90 per cent of the birds are strictly
monogamous and Dr. Brehm says in his Thierleben, "real
genuine marriage can be found only among the birds." The
making of the nest and the subsequent care necessary to
the survival of the young devolves upon both parents, and
while the principal duty in connection with the incubation
of the eggs rests upon the mother, the father fulfills his
duty toward the family as protector and provider. The

11 Brehm. Thierleben.

"Gunther. Introduction to the Study of Fishet.

a Espinas. Des Societal anhnalet.

The History of Marriage 37

operation of the law of natural selection is clearly enough
apparent in the relation between male and female birds, for
a delinquent parent would quickly eradicate his strain
through the diminution of the chances of the survival of
his offspring.

Even among the lower mammals, where the care of the
young is ordinarily left wholly to the female, there are
some cases where the male assists in the protection of the
young, as among the whales, seals, gazelles and other small
antelopes, squirrels, moles and some carniverous animals.14

"What among the lower mammals is an exception," says
Westermarck, "is among the quadrumana the rule." Espe-
cially among the man-like apes the joint care of the off-
spring is commonly observed. Westermarck quotes a de-
scription of the orang-utan, given by Lieutenant C. de
Crispigny who was wandering in the northern part of Bor-
neo in 1870: "They live in families — the male, the female
and a young one. On one occasion I found a family in
which there were two young ones, one of them much larger
than the other, and I took this as a proof that the family
tie had existed for at least two seasons. They build com-
modious nests in the trees which form their feeding ground,
and so far as I could observe, the nests, which are well lined
with dry leaves, are occupied only by the female and the
young, the male passing the night at the foot of the same
or another tree in the vicinity. The nests are very numer-
ous all over the forests, for they are not occupied above
a few nights, the mias (or orang-utan) leading a roving
life."15

Other observers differ somewhat in their testimony as to
the habits of the orang-utan, Dr. Mohnike stating that
the old males generally live with the females only during
the rutting season,16 while Wallace has found not only fe-

14 Brehm. Thierleben.

"Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society.

"Mohnike. Die Affen auf den indischen Inseln.

38 The Loews of Sex

males but males as well followed about by half-grown
young.17

The evidence with regard to the gorilla is far more con-
clusive. Dr. Savage states that they live in bands and
that but one adult male is seen in each group. "It is
said that when the male is first seen he gives a terrific
yell that resounds far and wide through the forest. The
females and young quickly disappear; he then approaches
the enemy in great fury pouring out his horrid cries in
quick succession."18

Mr. Du Chaillu found "almost always one male with one
female, though sometimes the old male wanders companion-
less."19

Mr. Winwood Reade agrees that the gorilla goes "some-
times alone, sometimes accompanied by his female and young
one."

Herr von Koppenfels in Meine Jagden auf Gorillas, de-
scribes the family very exactly. The male commonly spends
the night crouching at the foot of the tree and thus pro-
tects the female and the young in the nest above from
the nocturnal attacks of leopards. He reports one gorilla
family consisting of a male and a female with two young
of different ages, the elder being perhaps six years old,
the younger about one.

"When all these statements are compared," says Wester-
marck, "it is impossible to doubt that the gorilla lives in
families, the male parent being in the habit of building
the nest and protecting the family. And the same is the
case with the chimpanzee."

According to Dr. Savage, "it is not unusual to see 'The
Old Folks' sitting under a tree regaling themselves with
fruit and friendly chat, while 'their children' are leaping
around them and swinging from branch to branch in boister-

tt Wallace. The Malay Archipelago.

18 Savage. Description of Troglodytes Gorilla.

19 Du Chaillu. Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa.

The History of Marriage 39

ous merriment."20 Herr von Koppenfels agrees that the
chimpanzee, like the gorilla, builds a nest for the female
and the young arid acts as their protector.

The same phenomena are observed in savage and barbar-
ous races of man.

"With the exception of a few cases in which certain tribes
are asserted to live together promiscuously — almost all of
which assertions," says Westermarck, "I shall prove fur-
ther on to be groundless — travellers unanimously agree that
in the human race the relations of the sexes are as a rule
of a more or less durable character. The family consisting
of a father, mother and offspring is a universal institution,
whether founded on a monogamous, polygamous or polyan-
drous marriage. And, as among the lower animals having
the same habit, it is to the mother that the immediate care
of the children chiefly belongs, while the father is the pro-
tector and guardian of the family. Man in the savage
state is generally supposed to be rather indifferent to the
welfare of his wife and children, and this is really often
the case if he be compared with civilized man. But the sim-
plest paternal duties are nevertheless universally recognized.
If he does nothing else, the father builds the habitation and
employs himself in j<he chase and in war."

Westermarck presents a mass of ethnological evidence in
support of the hypothesis of primitive marriage, but it is
impossible here to give more than a few excerpts from his
monumental work.

Among the Indians of North and South America, the Pat-
win, the Iroquois and the Charruas, it was held that a man
must support his wife.21 Among the Fuegians according
to Admiral Fitzroy, "as soon as a youth is able to maintain

"Savage. On Troglodytes niger.
**Wait/. Anthropohffie der Naturvolfar.

Powers. Tribes of California.

Azara. Voyages dam I'Amerique meridional*.

40 The Laws of Sex

a wife by his exertions in fishing or bird-catching he ob-
tains the consent of her relations.'* 22

Mr. Hewitt states with reference to the Kurnai in South
Australia, "the man has to provide for the family with the
assistance of his wife. His share is to hunt for their sup-
port and to fight for their protection."

Certain customs regarding the birth of children indicate
the recognition of paternal responsibility. In the Encounter
Bay tribe if the father dies before the child is born it is
frequently put to death, as there is no longer anyone to
care for it. Rev. D. Macdonald states that in some African
tribes "a father has to fast after the birth of his child, or
to take some method of showing that he as well as the mother
should take care of the young stranger." The South Ameri-
can Guaranies do not risk their lives in hunting or fighting
while their wives are pregnant and the same is true of certain
African tribes.23

According to Sir J. Emerson Tennent, the Rock Veddahs
in Ceylon "acknowledge the marital obligation and the duty
of supporting their families." Among the Nagus, the
Nairs and the Maldivians, the man is allowed to marry only
on condition that he can support a wife, and the same is
true of the tribes of the Barito district in Borneo.

In order to establish his right to marry, the youth is
required by many tribes to perform deeds of prowess, to
kill an enemy as among the Karmanians, or a rhinoceros as
among the tribes of Zambesi. Mr. William Thurn relates
that among the wild Indians of British Guiana before a man
is permitted to choose a wife he must prove that he can do
a man's work and is able to support himself and his family.

Among the Chukchi of Asia,24 the Basutos in Southern

MKing and Fitzroy. Voyages of the Adventure and the Beagle.
"Macdonald. Africana.
Letourneau. Sociology.
* Hooper. Ten Months among the Tents of Tufki.

The History of Marriage 41

Africa 25 and the Munda Kols in Chota Nagpore M even
repudiated wives with their children have claims on the
former husband. He is bound to protect them and provide
for them after the manner of modern alimony even though
he has set up a new family. In certain tribes the widow has
claims upon the descendants of her husband which are some-
times fulfilled by marriage with a brother-in-law.

The responsibility of the father is almost universally
recognized even among the lowest tribes and his duty to the
family as supporter and protector is ordinarily fulfilled with
naive fidelity.

In view of this evidence it is impossible to doubt the
validity of Westermarck's hypothesis of primitive marriage.
First seen among the lower orders as a response to the
need of protection for the young, marriage has survived as
an institution for the protection of the race.

Under civilization that which in an earlier era had been
merely the natural expression of a fundamental racial need,
became gradually crystallized into inelastic law and custom.

Marriage by capture and marriage by purchase were ap-
parently widely current in earlier times. Certain marriage
ceremonials which still persist, in which the capture is simu-
lated by the wedding party, indicate the survival of a more
remote custom. Among certain peoples, however, as among
the Chinese, marriage by capture was probably unknown.27

Even to-day marriage by purchase is the established order
among certain semi-civilized races and in substance it is not
infrequent in the highest social stratum. The wedding ring
is said to represent the bridepiece of earlier days.

Among the Kafirs from three to ten cows is a low price
and from twenty to thirty cows a high price for a wife. In
Mangoni country two skins of a buck are considered a fair

**Endeman. Mittheilungen iiber die Sotho-Neger.
* Jellinghaus. Sagen, Bitten und Gebrduche der Munda-Kolht in
Chota Nagpore.
"Jamieson in The China Review.

42 The Laws of Sex

price for a bride and Mr. Wilson relates that in Uganda he
was offered a wife for a coat or a pair of shoes.28 The
purchase of wives has from the beginning apparently been
considered disgraceful by certain peoples and as civilization
has advanced it has become discarded or at least concealed.

The significance of the dot is more or less debatable. It
may represent the purchase-price of the husband or be merely
a recognition of the duty of the wife to contribute toward
the household. In highly organized societies the dot often
marks the distinction between the wife and the concubine.

Among primitive man, as among the quadrumena, no
ceremony whatsover was associated with marriage. Even
today among uncivilized people, as in certain Eskimo tribes,
"there is no ceremony at all, nor are there any rejoicings or
festivities. The parties simply come together and live in
their own tupee or igloo." 29 Among the Comanches, the
Outanatas of New Guinea, the Solomon Islanders and the
Tasmanians marriage is consummated with no ceremony,
and the same is true of certain Australian and African
tribes.

As the importance of marriage came to be recognized
rites symbolic of the new union came to be instituted. These
sometimes consisted merely in eating together as among the
Navajos or Santals or in joining hands as among the
Indo-Europeans, and frequently the ceremony represents
merely an earlier mode of contracting marriage as by cap-
ture or purchase. The permanency of the union is some-
times symbolized, as for example among the Hindus where
the bride and bridegroom have their hands bound together
by grass, and often the subjection of the wife to the husband
is indicated in the ceremonials.

At the beginning of the Christian era there were no re-
ligious ceremonies associated with marriage and until the

* Wilson and Felkin. Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan.
"Hall. Arctic Researches and Life among the Esquimaux.

The History of Marriage 48

Council of Trent, in 1563, religious benediction of marriage
was not obligatory among Christian peoples.

The history of modern marriage may be said to begin
with the later days of the Roman Empire when the founda-
tion of Roman law was being laid which has exercised so
wide an influence in Christendom. In ancient Rome there
were three ways of contracting marriage: by the religious
form or confarreation, by the higher form of civil marriage
called coemption and by the lower form termed usus. Under
these ancient forms the woman passed in manum viri, all
of her property became absolutely her husband's and she
was retained in tutelage after his death to the guardian
whom he had appointed by will. By degrees these ancient
forms of marriage fell into disuse and at the most splendid
period of Roman greatness they had given way "to a fashion
of wedlock — old apparently but not hitherto considered
reputable — which was founded on the lower form of civil
marriage." 30

The right of guardianship was no longer transferred to
the husband but was retained by the wife's family and her
property also remained in her own hands. "The consequence
was," says Sir Henry Maine, "that the situation of the
Roman female, whether married or unmarried, became one
of great personal and proprietary independence, for the
tendency of the later law was to reduce the power of the
guardian to a nullity, while the form of marriage in fashion
conferred on the husband no compensating superiority."
Divorce was a private transaction between husband and wife,
though under Augustus a public declaration was necessary.

It is interesting to note the freedom associated with the
marriage tie at the height of power of the greatest Empire
that has ever dominated the world.

From the first, partly as a result of asceticism, and partly
as a relic of the Jewish marriage system, Christianity tended

••Sir Henry Maine. Primitive Society and Ancient Law.

44 The Laws of Sea:

to restrict the freedom of the marriage tie, especially as it
involved women. Under the Christian Emperors freedom of
divorce was alternately maintained and abolished.

Following the dissolution of the Empire the German in-
fluence, which was still more primitive than that of the Jews
and which held the wife to be merely the chattel of her
husband, was strongly felt and marriage became degraded
to the level of a barbaric institution. The wife was little
more than a domestic slave and all rights in her person, her
property and her children became vested in her husband.

The Christian Church in the beginning permitted her
priests to marry and accepted the existent forms of mar-
riage in those countries in which it found itself, the Roman
form in the lands of Latin traditions and the German form
in Teutonic countries. It merely ordained that marriage
should be blessed by the church, but this benediction was
not required for the recognition of legal marriage. Before
the sixth century it was the custom for the married couple
after completion of the secular ceremonies to attend the
ordinary service at the church and take the sacrament.

The development of the marriage ceremony may be traced
to the bride-mass which appeared in the tenth century and
which was later supplanted by an imposing ritual which
began outside the church and ended with the bride-mass
inside. It was not until the thirteenth century that the
priest superseded the guardians of the young couple and
himself officiated throughout the whole ceremony.31

The present method of celebrating marriage is based on
the rites of the Catholic Church in the twelfth century,
formulated in Canon Law. Until the sixteenth century the
fundamental truth, that marriage depends in its essence
upon the mutual consent of the persons involved, was not
lost sight of, and even when the Council of Trent made
ecclesiastical rites essential to binding marriage fifty-six
prelates voted against this decision.
n Howard. History of Matrimonial Institution*.

The History of Marriage 45

With the Reformation marriage came to be regarded as
a secular matter, not as a sacrament, although curiously
enough it was still solemnized in the church. The reformers
differed widely among themselves as to divorce, some main-
taining as did Luther, Calvin and Beza that it should only
be granted for adultery or malicious desertion, and others,
including Zwingli and Bucer, believing that divorce should
be permitted for various causes, including incompatibility.
Luther held that the cause for divorce automatically con-
stituted freedom from the matrimonial tie irrespective of
legal proceedings.

In the later Puritan movement efforts were made to
establish secular marriage and in 1653 an act permitting
marriage to be performed by a Justice of the Peace was
passed in England but was later abolished by the Restora-
tion.

It was at about this time that Milton published his Doc-
trine and Discipline of Divorce (1643), a work characterized
by wholly modern thought and upholding the right of
the individual to withdraw from marriage upon volition.
Howard, writing in 1904, says this book is "the boldest
defense of the liberty of divorce that has yet appeared. If
taken in the abstract and applied to both sexes alike, it is
perhaps the strongest defense which can be made by an
appeal to mere authority." The book made absolutely no
impression on the age in which it was published, although
many critics now hold that it is the most important of
Milton's works.

In the new world legal secular marriage was to some
extent instituted, but even today it is not universally recog-
nized in America as, for example, in Maryland, where mar-
riage must still be solemnized by a priest or a clergyman.

With the French Revolution civil marriage obtained recog-
nition in France and now in most countries marriage can be
performed without the intervention of the Church.

The forms which marriage has taken follow in the main

46 The Laws of Sex

the condition of life of any given people and the numerical
proportion of males to females. Among warlike nations
where the number of young men was reduced through war
polygamy has been practiced and even in Christan Europe
polygamy has occasionally been allowed or tolerated.
Luther allowed Philip of Hesse to marry two wives and St.
Augustus did not condemn it. After the treaty of West-
phalia bigamy was permitted in Germany because of de-
population.

On the whole, however, even among savage nations
monogamy has been the rule and polygamy has been enjoyed
only by kings or very wealthy persons.

In the polygamous family there is ordinarily a tendency
to give preference to one wife indicating the natural trend
of the monogamous instinct. The numerical relation of the
sexes has very probably contributed to the institution of
monogamy, although this is not in itself sufficient to explain
the idealization of this form of the marriage tie.

It is generally supposed that in polygamous countries
most men have several wives and that promiscuous relations
are less frowned upon than in monogamous lands. This
is by no means true : in India 95 per cent of the Islamites are
monogamous and in Persia even 98 per cent. Extra marital
relations are regarded with great severity and a father is
permitted to kill the seducer of his daughter.

There are but few instances of polyandrous races. Be-
fore the English conquest the Cingalese were polyandrous,
one wife having sometimes as many as seven husbands. In
Thibet polyandry is still recognized.

Here again the tendency toward monogamy is evidenced
in the preference of one husband over the others.

Concubinage has been recognized in almost all civilized
countries as a sort of lesser form of marriage, the concubine
occupying a place midway between that of the wife and the
domestic servant. In earlier days, even in Europe, the con-
cubine was respected, although she enjoyed few of the pre-

The History of Marriage 47

rogatives of the wife. Morganatic marriage, which has only
very recently fallen into disrepute, represents a form of
concubinage. The rise of Democracy has everywhere wit-
nessed the disappearance of recognized concubinage, it being
ordinarily a prerequisite of the aristocratic orders. Concu-
binage was apparently instituted to meet the emotional needs
of man which were denied by the stringent marriage laws
and by the adaptation of marriage to political ends.

From this brief survey it will be seen that "marriage is
an inheritance from some ape like progenitors," that it
was originally consummated with no forms and ceremonies
and that it arose in response to a definite racial need. The
long infancy of the young and the perils of childbirth made
paternal care essential to procreation, and from this need
the family took its source. Paternal love and pride in off-
spring developed from family life and served to bind father,
mother and child into the social unit of the home.

Throughaut the long development of marriage, monogamy
has apparently been constantly the norm about which
polygamy, polyandry and concubinage have oscillated. Es-
pecially among highly developed people monagamy, of more
or less permanent character, is found to be the ideal, and
the position of woman in wedlock signifies among modern
races the order of civilization that obtains.

The transition from barbarism to civilization is marked
by the subjection of women to the position of domestic
slaves whence they have only within recent times begun to
extricate themselves.32 During this period marriage has
changed from a more or less natural relationship into an
institution surrounded by arbitrary religious and legal re-
strictions. The monogamous ideal has become firmly en-
trenched, but with the rise of democracy a reaction has set
in denying the sacramental nature of marriage and demand-
ing a relaxation of the laws governing divorce. While
monogamy is still the recognized ideal, most modern thought

82 Annie Besant. Marriage as it Was, at it Is, and at it Should Be.

48 The Laws of Sex

tends to give supremacy to the facts rather than the forms
of sexual union. The later the civilization the easier is
divorce as exemplified in the western parts of the United
States ; moreover, where divorce is facilitated monogamy still
remains the accepted code, a legal relation merely supplant-
ing what would otherwise be concubinage. Havelock Ellis,
Iwan Bloch, Edward Carpenter, August Forel, Ellen Key,
and the whole group of psychoanalysts led by Freud and
Jung, and almost all the other modern writers on the sexual
question, hold that the foundation of marriage must be
sought in natural emotions and not in arbitrary law. From
their studies it is clear that the trend of the times is in the
direction of the reform of the marriage code to the end that
nature may find fuller expression of her potentialities
through the sex life of man.

CHAPTER, m

THE ORIGIN AND CAUSES OF PROSTITUTION

Despite current opinion to the contrary, prostitution is
not a primitive institution but has arisen coincidently with
civilization. It is practically unknown among savage races,
and appears to have developed as an economic corollary to
artificial marriage customs.1

The importance of prostitution to the race lies first in
its tendency to degrade and thwart the sexual instincts of
humanity, and second in its function as purveyor of venereal
disease. By prostitution is understood venal sex relation-
ships outside marriage. To many this definition may appear
too narrow, as the sale of wives or even of husbands is so
frequently observed, and prostitution in wedlock is alas !
so often the lot of married women. It is essential, however,
for purposes of analysis to differentiate between venal re-
lationships of transitory character and those in which a
more permanent union obtains, for although both are equally
repugnant to a well-developed ethical sense, they stand in
a different relation to the racial life, especially so far as
venereal disease is concerned. The woman who sells herself
once for all to a man as his wife is without doubt as morally
degraded as her sister on the streets, but as she does not
serve many men she is isolated as a medium for the spread
of venereal infection.

Again extra-marital relationships based not upon money
but upon love do not fall within the definition, for persons
who are bound together by love may enjoy a more permanent

1 Havelock Ellis. Sex in Relation to Society.

49

50 The Laws of Sex

and faithful union than those over whom the rites of matri-
mony have been pronounced.

In this sense the Bacchanalian orgy of earlier times,
which has in some places been preserved as the Christian
festival of Mardi-gras, or the Medieval Feast of Fools,
vestiges of which remain in the New Year's Revel, cannot
be said to represent an early phase of prostitution, for
the relations that were entered upon in those orgies were
not tainted with venality, neither were they promiscuous
in the ordinary meaning of this term. In Munich and other
parts of Southern Europe it is said that nine months after
Mardi-gras an extraordinarily large number of illegitimate
children are always born, conception apparently being asso-
ciated with the celebration of the great annual festival.
The relations which give rise to these children cannot, how-
ever, be said to resemble prostitution, for they are not based
upon venality.

The earliest form of prostitution that is known is that
associated with the worship of various deities. Herodotus,2
in the fifth century before Christ, records that every woman
once in her life had to come to the temple of Mylitta, the
Babylonian Venus, and give herself to the first stranger
who threw a coin in her lap. The offering was given to
the temple of the goddess, and the woman returned to her
home and lived chastely afterwards. Similar customs ex-
isted in Western Asia, in North Africa, in Cyprus, and the
Mediterranean Islands, and also in Greece.3 Even today
in some parts of Southern India and the Deccan this sort
of religious prostitution is still practised.4 By degrees,
especially in sea coast towns, religious prostitution is said
to have degenerated into the more secular form, but it is
doubtful if the origin of prostitution can be traced to this
source. Religious prostitution probably developed as a

' Herodotus. Book 1.

* Farnell. Cults of Greek States.

4S. Van Geunep. Rites de Passage.

The Origin and Causes of Prostitution 51

result of the association of fertility with the different gods
and goddesses.

The punishment that is meted out by many uncivilized
races for the offense of unchastity is sufficient evidence of
the absence of prostitution among these tribes. Munzinger
reports that among the East African Takue a seducer may
have to pay the same penalty as if he had killed a girl.5
Among the Beni Amer the seducer is punished with death,
together with the girl and the child. In Tessaua the father
of an illegitimate child may be find 100,000 kurdi.6 In
Uganda, Cunningham reports that after the birth of an
illegitimate child "the man and the woman are bound hand
and foot and thrown into Lake Victoria."

Among the Australian Maroura tribe before the advent
of the white man "it- -was almost death to a lad or man
who had sexual intercourse till marriage."7

In telling of the Bakwains, Livingstone says : "No one
ever gains much influence in this country without purity
and uprightness. The acts of a stranger are keenly scruti-
nized by both young and old, and seldom is the judgment
pronounced, even by the heathen, unfair or uncharitable. I
have heard women speaking in admiration of a white man
because he was pure and never guilty of any sexual immor-
ality. Had he been they would have known it, and untutored
heathen though they be, would have despised him in conse-
quence."8 The penalty of death is frequently inflicted by
savage races, both upon the seducer and the girl, as in Nias ;
and among some of the Alaskan tribes the man is regarded
with even more contempt than his victim.9

The reports that are brought back by travellers of semi-
civilized races that are supposed to tolerate promiscuity
between the sexes, are in the main not reliable, for they

8 Munzinger. Ostafrikanische Studien.
"Earth. Reisen in Nord und Central Afrika.

7 Holden, in Taplin, Folklore of the South Australian Aborigines.

8 Livingstone. Missionary Travels.
"Petroff. Report on Alaska.

58 The Laws of Sex

concern the unnatural conditions that result when civiliza-
tion and alcohol come in contact with primitive peoples. The
comparative freedom of sexual choice that is permitted
among uncivilized races is also often confused with pro-
miscuity.

Upon consideration of the conditions that obtain among
savage and barbarous races, it is clear that the basic causes
of prostitution are lacking in these groups. Early mar-
riage is permitted. The great chasm between wealth and
poverty does not exist, and ordinarily the group is so
small that secret liaisons would be quickly detected. Pros-
titution is peculiarly the outgrowth of urban life, and the
large city is always associated with at least some degree
of civilization.

It is enlightening to note that among savage races the
punishment for seduction is meted out by the relatives of
the girl or by the clan, and that the offense is regarded
in relation to the family or tribe, and not in relation to
the girl or her offspring.

An interesting custom among the Basutos which is related
by Casalis indicates the supernatural dread in which mascu-
line unchastity is held. Immediately after the birth of a
child the fire of the dwelling was freshly kindled. "For
this purpose it was necessary that a young man of chaste
habits should rub two pieces of wood quickly, one against
another, until a flame sprang up, pure as himself. It was
firmly believed that a premature death awaited him who
should dare to take upon himself this office after having
lost his innocence. As soon, therefore, as a birth was
proclaimed in the village the fathers took their sons to
undergo the ordeal. Those who felt themselves guilty con-
fessed their crime, and submitted to be scourged, rather
than expose themselves to a fatal temerity."10

10 Casalis. Bcuutos.

The Origin and Causes of Prostitution 53

In more advanced races a differentiation is made between
the standard of conduct required among unmarried men
and unmarried women. Adultery also appears to be a more
serious offense in a woman than a man. "Confucianism,"
says Mr. Griffis, "virtually admits two standards of moral-
ity, one for man, another for woman. Chastity is a female
virtue. It is part of a womanly duty, it has little or no
relation to man personally."11 Yet chastity is still upheld
as an ideal for men and according to a Chinese proverb
"of the myriad vices, lust is the worst." The Chinese penal
code provides that "criminal intercourse by mutual consent
with an unmarried woman shall be punished with seventy
blows."

Among the ancient Hebrews the harlot was held in great
contempt, but the man who associated with her did not
necessarily demean himself thereby. The Mohammedans re-
gard chastity as an essential feminine virtue, but consider
it to be almost beyond masculine attainment. The Hindus
consider fornication rarely a sin among men, but "in females
nothing is held more execrable or abominable. The unhappy
inhabitants of houses of ill fame are looked upon as the
most degraded of the human species."12

Down to the days of St. Boniface the Saxons forced an
unmarried girl who had dishonored her family to hang her-
self, after which her body was burned and her seducer was
hanged over the fire. The early Teutons also punished
fornication by scourging or mutilation, often inflicting severe
penalties upon the seducer.

In ancient Greece prostitution was permitted, but with
the exception of the hetairse, who occupied a comparatively
high place on account of their beauty and intellectuality,
the individual prostitute was looked upon with contempt.

"Griffis. Religion* of Japan,

** Dubois. Description of the character, etc., of the People of India.

54 The Laws of Sex

The Athenian father was permitted by law to kill the seducer
of his daughter.

Modern prostitution may be said to begin in Rome, where
it must be recalled an order of civilization existed compara-
ble in luxury and extravagance to that of the present day.
Brothels were encouraged but were secretly visited by the
Roman, who entered them with covered head and face con-
cealed in his cloak. Prostitutes were permitted to ply their
trade openly enough, but were divested of many of £he
privileges of ordinary citizens, and were not allowed to
wear the stola or vitta, or to assume the emblems of the
Roman matron.

The early Church connived at prostitution and the Chris-
tian emperors derived a tax from this source.

The younger Theodosius and Valentinian proscribed
brothels and ordained that anyone giving shelter to a prosti-
tute should be severely punished. Under Justinian offenders
were condemned to exile on penalty of death, and brothels
were outlawed. In various parts of Europe these enact-
ments were repeated with varying degrees of severity. Re-
cared, a Catholic King of the Visigoths, ordained that pros-
titutes should be flogged and exiled, and Charlemagne and
Frederick Barbarossa had them driven out of the cities with
scourges, and condemned some of them to death.13 None
of these measures proved efficacious in checking prostitution.

In France, many crusades were launched against this evil.
St. Louis in 1254 ordained that prostitutes should be exiled
and that their goods should be seized, and before setting
out for the Holy Land he ordered that all places of pros-
titution should be razed to the ground. Even among his
own soldiers, however, prostitution flourished.

In an edict of 1560 Charles IX abolished brothels, but
to no avail. Similar efforts were made in Venice, and espe-
cially in Vienna, when under Maria Theresa fines, imprison-
ment and torture were resorted to in order to eliminate
M Rabutaux. Historic de la Prostitution en Europe.

The Origvn and Causes of Prostitution 55

prostitution. A Chastity Commission was instituted in 1751
to investigate and suppress the supposed causes of forni-
cation, such as short dresses and the public employment
of women. But the effort was in vain, and Joseph II in
the early part of his reign abolished the Commission and
repealed the most severe measures against prostitution.

At the same time, much as in recent days, the patron-
age of prostitution was more or less openly sanctioned.
Royal commissions included the cost of visiting prostitutes
in their legitimate travelling expenses, and national festivi-
ties were often marked by a special influx of prostitutes.
It is reported that when Emperor Sigismund visited Ulm
in 1434 the streets leading to the brothels were illuminated
for the convenience of his suite.

In the papal court of Alexander Borgia many courtesans
were in attendance, and Burchard, the careful historian of
this court, records in his diary that in October, 1501, the
Pope had 50 courtesans brought to his chamber. After
supper, in the presence of Caesar Borgia and his young
sister Lucrezia they danced, at first dressed but afterwards
naked. Candlesticks with lighted candles were then placed
upon the floor and chestnuts were thrown in among them;
these the women sought creeping on their hands and knees.
Prizes were finally awarded in the judgment of the onlookers
to the men "qui pluries dictos meretrices carnaliter
agnoscerent."14

The na'ive record of this episode in the Apostolic palace
throws light on the actual attitude toward prostitution dur-
ing the renaissance.

At the time of the Stuarts in England the Church reaped
part of her revenue from houses of prostitution, as has
been more recently the case in New York City.

The first advocate of the state regulation of vice was
Bernard Mandeville, who in 1724 published his Modest De-
fense of Publick Stews. He advocated the passage of special

" Burchard. Dwrium.

56 The Laws of Sex

acts by Parliament limiting prostitution to certain parts
of the city and providing for its supervision by physicians
and special deputies. "The encouraging of public whoring,"
he wrote, "will not only prevent the most mischievous effects
of this vice, but will even lessen the quantity of whoring
in general and reduce it to the narrowest bounds which it
can possibly be contained in." His plan did not meet with
approval, and it remained for the great Napoleon to institute
regulation. In 1802 Napoleon I, recognizing the military
danger involved in venereal disease, and the importance of
an increased birth rate for France, inaugurated his famous
Code.

Under these provisions the Police des Moeurs was created
with power to inscribe regular prostitutes and to
compel their physical examination and treatment. Dis-
eased prostitutes were incarcerated in lock hospitals and
health cards were given to those who were permitted to
ply their trade. Any woman who was suspected by the
police of being a prostitute was subject to examination
as under our present Board of Health regulations. In
addition the Code provided "la recherbe de la paternite est
interdite,"15 so that the mother of a bastard child had no
redress so far as the father of her child was concerned.
This provision was made in order to facilitate promiscuous
relations for men, with the point in view of increasing
the birth rate, and providing future soldiers.

Following the example of France most of the continental
countries inaugurated regulation, and under the Contagious
Diseases Acts the system was introduced into England. Many
American cities also instituted a sort of unofficial regula-
tion and set apart segregated districts for prostitution.

It was believed that by confining prostitution to certain
areas the harmful effects of the evil would be diminished
and that the periodic examination of public women which
could thereby be effected would greatly reduce venereal

u Code Napoleon.

The Origin and Causes of Prostitution 57

infection. It was, however, found to be impossible in prac-
tise to restrict prostitution to the segregated district, for
the women plied their trade clandestinely and the police could
apprehend only a small proportion of their number. In
some cities, such as Berlin, the inscription and periodic ex-
amination of prostitutes was provided for under reglementa-
tion, but the law ordained penalties for housing prostitutes
and made no provision for bordelles. Thus the law per-
mitted a prostitute to ply her trade but denied her any
domicile in which to do so. The result was that landlords
charged exorbitant rentals for rooms used by prostitutes,
as is the case at present where prostitution is illegal but
is tolerated by public opinion.

After a short experience it was found that the Police
des Mceurs abused its powers greatly, drawing a revenue
from prostitution and even forcing innocent girls to submit
to their demands or to become publicly degraded as inscribed
prostitutes. The white slave trade developed as a by-prod-
uct of segregation, for the necessity of having an adequate
number of inmates in the brothels created a lucrative oppor-
tunity for the organization of this business. An exten-
sive literature indicates that this commerce reached large
proportions. It appears that girls were shipped from rural
districts, particularly from Eastern Europe, to various cen-
tres where they were sold like cattle.16 Especially in the
Argentine this method of recruiting prostitutes became no-
torious. It was estimated by Felix Baumann that the num-
ber of traders in girls in New York City approached 20,000.
To combat this commerce numerous organizations were
formed, both on the Continent and in America, and the
unanimous opinion developed that the only way to suppress
the white slave traffic lay through the abolition of the brothel.

16 Alfred S. Dyer. The Trade in English Girls.
Alexis Splingard. Clarissa from the Dark Houses of Belgium.
Otto Henne am Rhyn. Prostitution and the Traffic in Oirls.
Julius Kem6ny. Revelations Regarding the International Traffic in
Girl*.

58 The Laws of Sex

In regard to the control of venereal disease the method
of regulation proved most disappointing. In the first place
so small a proportion of public women could be brought
under inscription that their examination hardly affected the
general mass of infection, and in the second place the diffi-
culty of making a negative diagnosis of venereal disease,
especially in women, nullified the efficacy of the procedure.

In 1905 Blaschko estimated that not more than 15 per
cent of the public prostitutes in Berlin were inscribed, and
similar figures have been advanced by students of the prob-
lem elsewhere. In addition the fear of inscription drove
many women to conceal their disease and refuse treatment,
and those with flagrant infection usually disappeared from
the police, going to other towns to practise their profes-
sion.

In the Scandinavian countries voluntary treatment has
been substituted for regulation, because it was found that
inscription prevented women from applying at the clinics
for treatment.

When regulation was first instituted there was compara-
tively little scientific knowledge at hand with regard to
the nature of the venereal diseases. The infective organ-
isms had not been isolated and no clinical methods had
been developed for detecting other than flagrant cases of
syphilis and gonorrhoea. The examinations were cursory
and superficial and were more apt to disseminate than to
expose infection. Even to-day where this procedure is in
vogue the technique of the examinations is usually lacking
in aseptic precautions. Dr. George Walker reports that
at one clinic in France during the recent war he saw twenty
women exposed upon the examining tables while the physi-
cian in charge passed rapidly from one to another, making
the examinations without once disinfecting his hands or his
instruments throughout the whole series. In his masterly
work, Prostitution m Europe, Mr. Abraham Flexner reports
many similar instances, and derives the opinion that the

The Origin and Causes of Prostitution 59

periodic examination of public women is worse than use-
less so far as the control of venereal disease is concerned.
In addition to the medical inefficiency of regulation, which
has only been adequately illuminated by the modern scientific
knowledge of venereal disease in its more subtle forms, the
cruelty and injustice of the method has served to bring it
into disrepute.

In England, Mrs. Josephine Butler, leading the Aboli-
tionists, succeeded in 1886, after many years of ardent
effort, in bringing about the repeal of the Contagious Dis-
eases Acts. In her Personal Reminiscences of a Great Cru-
sade, she tells with graphic forcefulness of the dangers and
difficulties which the Abolitionists endured before they
achieved victory. Their meetings were assailed by mobs,
their leaders were stoned and threatened with death. The
forces even of the Church were arrayed against them. After
the repeal of the Acts the incidence of venereal disease
was found to fall, which has since been a telling argument
against regulation.

In America most of the larger cities have had their seg-
regated districts, but regulation has not been systematically
written into the law. Statutes prohibiting prostitution have
existed coincidentally with segregation. The examination
of the inmates of brothels has usually been unofficially car-
ried through. Acting under orders, the police have per-
mitted prostitutes to ply their trade within certain restricted
districts, and unless crimes were committed in the brothels
they were until recently unmolested. The usual method fol-
lowed has been to hail the madams to court one day in
the year and to impose fines ranging from $50 to $200,
which were virtually licenses. The proceeds from these fines
have usually been apportioned by law to some department
of the city government. In Baltimore, for instance, one-
half was paid to the Sheriff's office and one-half to the free
public dispensaries.

Upon payment of her fine the madam was permitted to

60 The Laws of Sea:

return to her brothel and unless complaints were subse-
quently lodged against her establishment, such as theft
or gambling, she usually conducted her business without
interference for the course of another year. In Baltimore
May Day was the occasion for the yearly summonsing of
the madams, and it was interesting to hear their comments
on the Judge's sentences. Many of the women were well
known to the Judge, and he addressed them by their first
names. They gave their addresses and the number of inmates,
and sometimes were asked the price that they charged.
Some of the women were gratified at escaping with light
fines, but the majority appeared to resent the procedure,
and paid over their money unwillingly, protesting that they
could not afford to pay so much. The estimate of the
policeman usually fixed the amount of the fine. The num-
ber of madams appearing in court on May Day in Balti-
more was usually about 200, and the number of inmates
they reported in their establishments varied from three to
fifteen. In addition some of them had "sitters," girls who
worked as nursemaids, domestic servants, salesladies, or
what not, and who occasionally spent a night at the brothel
to earn a little extra money. The prices charged ranged
from 50 cents to $10, the average being about $2. Some of
the madams were colored, but they served white as well as
colored men in their brothels. The procedure followed in
Baltimore was more or less typical of that pursued in other
cities.

Many of the red light districts in America have enjoyed
a national fame, the most widely known perhaps being in
New Orleans, Chicago, San Francisco and New York. They
have been places for the sightseer to visit, and the police
and cab-drivers have served to inform strangers as to their
whereabouts. Most boys have felt it to be part of their
necessary experience to look into the red light districts in
their own towns if from no other motive than that of curi-
osity. Alcoholic drinks were dispensed at high prices in

The Origin and Causes of Prostitution 61

the brothels, often only under a federal license. Under the
influence of these intoxicants boys who had come to the
brothel merely to see the sights were frequently led to patron-
ize the prostitutes. Most of the brothels in American cities
had no especial ear-marks of their trade. They were ordi-
nary dwellings, usually situated in the poorer quarter of
the towns, often on the outskirts of the wealthy section
for purposes of convenience for their patrons.

Unlike the continental brothels the furniture was usually
cheap and simple and the decorations almost prudish. Oc-
casionally a graphophone or a small dancing floor formed
part of the equipment. The patron who came alone was
admitted by the maid or one of the girls and was ushered
into a room where ordinarily no other men were present.
Secrecy for the patron was regarded as highly essential.
If he asked for no especial girl all of the inmates who
were not busy would come in and chat with him, and at
his convenience he would select one of the girls and ask
her to go upstairs with him. The money was always paid
either to the girl or the madam in advance of the sexual
act, the patron sometimes paying at the door and receiving
a brass check which he subsequently turned over to the
prostitute. In addition it was customary for the patron
to give the girl a small gratuity if her services had pleased
him.

In China, where the business has been still more systema-
tized, a number of tickets can be bought in advance at a
slightly reduced rate, and men with good credit are some-
times permitted to run a charge account for "American
girls," as prostitutes are called in the sections visited by
foreigners.

The costumes worn by prostitutes in brothels were usually
decollete evening gowns and often they had no other out-
side clothes but kimonos. Many of the prostitutes were
drug habitues and as they became obviously diseased or
otherwise lost their attractiveness they would descend to

62 The Laws of Sex

brothels of less eminence, finally being turned out in the
street by the madams to carry on their trade among ingenu-
ous boys and men under the influence of alcohol. Prosti-
tutes on the streets are sometimes purchasable for twenty-
five cents or a cup of coffee and a sandwich.

In addition to the regular brothels, houses of assigna-
tion sometimes not far removed from the good residential
district .were operated. A regular scale of prices, 50 cents
for a half hour, $1 an hour, and so on, was often nailed
up in the entry. The linen on the bed was usually changed
only at infrequent intervals. These houses were conducted
with the connivance of the police, and were listed at police
headquarters. Many hotels also permitted the use of their
rooms for assignation purposes and sometimes the desk
clerks had professional prostitutes on call for the conven-
ience of their patrons.

Until the beginning of the present century, with the ex-
ception of some few sporadic crusades, no effort was made
to check the open operation of the brothel and the house
of assignation. Many, even among the "reformers," be-
lieved that to break up the red light districts would merely
result in scattering prostitution broadcast, thereby making
it more dangerous than ever. At the first International
Conference for the Prophylaxis of Venereal Disease held in
Brussels in 1899, the argument centered around the question
of regulation and segregation. All were agreed that the
prostitution of minor girls should be suppressed, and that
the forms of regulation then in vogue were inadequate, but
the sentiment was so strongly for some kind of regulation
that it was impossible for the abolitionists to get through
a resolution calling for the suppression of the brothel. At
the second conference in 1902 the argument was resumed,
but no consensus of opinion with regard to regulation was
reached. Dr. Pileur, a supporter of regulation, stated
that the diversity of opinion on this point was so great that
it amounted to practical anarchy. All sorts of fantastic

The Origin and Causes of Prostitution 63

forms of regulation were advanced, some holding that the
state should own and operate the brothels, while others
maintained that forcible examination should be done away
with in order to encourage voluntary treatment.

While no agreement was reached with regard to regula-
tion, the conference was unanimous in its educational and
treatment program. The conference held that knowledge
with regard to the infectious nature and gravity of venereal
disease should be widely disseminated, and that facilities for
free, voluntary treatment should be instituted at public
expense.

Following the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts
dissatisfaction with the procedures followed in enforcing
regulation was increasingly voiced. The development of
the white slave trade with its startling tragedies had come
more or less to public knowledge, and the sympathies, par-
ticularly of the English women, had been aroused. In addi-
tion, the scientific knowledge of venereal disease had been
greatly enlarged, and the true infectiousness of prostitu-
tion was beginning to be recognized. Practical men who
were not interested in the problem from the point of view
of morals were being gradually forced to regard prosti-
tution as a menace to the public health. Even in France
and Germany, the strongholds of regulation, the system
was beginning to be deprecated because of its ineffective-
ness. Blaschko, Neisser and most of the members of the
Deutsche Gesellschaft fiir Bekampfung der Geschlechts-
krankheiten were of the opinion that regulation had misera-
bly failed, but as they were incapable of imagining a chaste
male population they advocated a reform of regulation
rather than the repression of prostitution. In 1905 Dr. A.
Blaschko, of Berlin, an eminent genito-urinary specialist,
stated to the writer that he did not believe that a single
normal man in Germany retained his chastity until he reached
maturity, and further that most mothers would be unwilling
to permit their daughters to marry chaste men as they

64> The Laws of Sex

would fear impotency. At that time it was reported on a
basis of excellent statistics that of all unmarried men of
30 years and upwards in Germany 100 per cent had had
gonorrhoea, and 25 per cent had had syphilis. Blaschko's
figures showed that the incidence of venereal disease in the
male population was highest in the cultivated classes, the
university students standing next in rate to the prostitutes.

The two factors that have conspired to bring legalized
prostitution into disrepute are, first, the rise of women, and
second, the increase of scientific knowledge with regard to
venereal disease. Women have approached the problem
largely from a moral viewpoint, but their efforts have coin-
cided with those of the more enlightened medical men who
have recognized in prostitution the breeding ground of syphi-
lis and gonorrhoea.

With the organization of the American Society of Sani-
tary and Moral Prophylaxis in 1905, the modern American
movement for the repression of prostitution and the control
of venereal disease may fairly be said to have begun. Dr.
Prince A. Morrow of New York, a prominent genito-urinary
specialist, inaugurated the work and stressed especially the
importance of a thorough-going campaign of education with
regard to the racial significance of the venereal diseases.
His book, Social Diseases and Marriage, aroused the lay
public to a realization of the racial menace of venereal dis-
ease and brought a gratifying response from the members
of the medical profession.

Before this time the W. C. T. U., the various suffrage
societies, and the American Vigilance Association had done
much good work for the repression of prostitution and the
establishment of a single standard of morals; but their
efforts had been directed mainly toward the moral aspects
of the problem, and they had failed to secure the coopera-
tion of the public.

In rapid succession various states took up Dr. Morrow's
work, forming the American Federation for Sex Hygiene,

The Origin and Causes of Prostitution 65

and the enlightenment of the public with regard to the inci-
dence and gravity of syphilis and gonorrhoea followed and
began to bear fruit. Numerous state and municipal commis-
sions were appointed to study the problem of the social
evil, and their reports were almost unanimous in recom-
mending the closure of the red light districts.

In 1914 a merger of the American Vigilance Association
and the American Federation for Sex Hygiene was effected
in the American Social Hygiene Association,17 which under
the able leadership of its General Secretary, Col. William
F. Snow, has since done excellent educational work along
these lines.

At the beginning of the recent war the interest of the
government in the abatement of venereal disease was enlisted,
for science had shown that syphilis and gonorrhoea consti-
tuted a very real menace to military efficiency, and that
the old methods of control were ineffective. The Commis-
sion on Training Camp Activities and the Inter-depart-
mental Social Hygiene Board were created. The Army and
Navy Departments called for the closure of red light dis-
tricts in the vicinity of the encampments and naval stations.
A vigorous educational and law enforcement campaign was
entered upon, and many of the red light districts were closed
in face of open opposition. One of the fundamental results
of the Government's campaign was the establishment of pro-
hibition, the importance of which in the repression of prosti-
tution cannot be over-estimated.

Unfortunately the authorities failed to carry through the
principle of a single standard of morals in their law enforce-
ment program, and a sort of Neo-Napoleonic regulation de-
veloped. The police court examination and lock hospital
treatment of diseased prostitutes, which had previously been
declared to be unconstitutional in connection with Clause
79 of the Page Bill in New York, reappeared and large num-
bers of women were imprisoned for having a venereal disease.

11 The name Social Hygiene was first used by a Chicago Society.

66 The Lawi of Sex

To complete the program prophylaxis was instituted for the
soldiers, thereby placing the government in the position of
tolerating masculine incontinence.

It is impossible to estimate the effect of the government's
social hygiene war program in its relation to the general
mass of prostitution. The police and the magistrates in
the minor courts, who are perhaps more closely in touch
with the situation than any other groups, vary greatly in
their opinion, some maintaining that there is more prosti-
tution today than ever before, while others believe that
conditions have been ameliorated. The statistics with regard
to venereal disease are so hopelessly inadequate that they
offer no basis of comparison for past and present promis-
cuity. The closure of the red light districts, which with
the emancipation of women promises a fair degree of per-
manency, would appear to mark a distinct gain, at least
from an educational point of view, but the widespread intro-
duction of prophylaxis with its tolerative features may
more than offset this advance. Prohibition is certainly an
asset, as intoxicants are known to stimulate desire, while
at the same time depressing individual resistance.

The new phases of prostitution associated with the use
of the automobile offer complications so far as law enforce-
ment is concerned. The pimp who formerly operated in
connection with the brothel, has transferred his activities
to the taxi-cab and markets his girls to his fares. The
road house just outside of the city limits beyond reach of
the municipal police has also assumed a new importance.
Since before the closure of the red light districts clandestine
prostitution formed the great bulk of the trade, and since
no new and effective methods have been devised for com-
bating this phase of the evil, it may reasonably be assumed
that clandestine prostitution is unabated. An analysis of
the causes of prostitution, however, indicates that the sub-
structure of this institution in the social order is gradually
approaching dissolution. The growing demand for economic

The Origin and Causes- of Prostitution 67

justice, the rise of women to spiritual and temporal power,
and the relaxation of the prejudice against legitimate divorce
and birth control, bespeak the dawn of a new day in the
relation between the sexes.

Until the twentieth century the responsibility for prosti-
tution was supposed by the public and the police to rest
mainly with dissolute women. They were assumed to act
the part of temptress and the brutal repressive measures
that were invoked against them were held to be justified
on the grounds of their brazen wantonness. The dogma of
the sexual necessity exonerated men from public resentment,
but served, of course, to perpetuate the social evil by pre-
venting the operation of the law against those who financed
prostitution. By a curious lapse of reason men were ex-
cused for indulging in illicit sexual relations on the ground
of their naturally promiscuous instincts, but the necessary
association of women with such congress was overlooked
and the individual prostitute came under the ban of public
opinion. Within the past decade the unreasonableness of
this attitude has been permeating the public conscience, with
the result that society is no longer as ready as formerly
to grant men an opportunity for the indulgence of their
sexual passions at the expense of women. By degrees the
prostitute is coming to be regarded more as the victim
than as the source of masculine profligacy. Credence in
the sexual necessity is gradully being replaced by the demand
. that men as well as women shall recognize their sexual re-
"sponsibilities to the race through the institution of marriage.

The barbarous doctrine that prostitution is necessary to
protect good women from the promiscuous instincts of men
is slowly giving way to the belief that monogamy represents
the natural expression of the sexual life of both men and
women. The relation of the economic situation to the prob-
lem of prostitution is still, however, but dimly understood.

Under a social order where early marriage is a financial
impossibility the choice for the young man lies not between

68 The Lew* of Sex

monogamy and promiscuity, but between celibacy and pros-
titution. He cannot even afford to think of marriage, with
the result that his thoughts turn to other relationships
which do not involve such serious financial responsibility.
Moreover, the young man in urban life occupies a singularly
isolated position so far as respectable feminine society is
concerned. There are few opportunities for him to meet
girls of his own class, except under the most artificial con-
ditions, and he must frequently either abjure feminine com-
panionship altogether or make his acquaintances among
girls who defy the conventions. The loneliness of young
people who are seeking their fortunes in the large cities is
but little understood by those who enjoy the geniality of
the family circle. From the hall bedroom in the sordid
boarding house they go to work, and after work there is
no place to enjoy life except the streets or commercialized
places of amusement. The daughters of the poor are simi-
larly placed. Their homes offer no opportunities for the
development of their budding interests and ambitions, and
they must either wither forlornly between the factory and
the tenement, or brave the dangers of the public highway.
Youth demands adventure, amusement and companionship,
and when legitimate satisfaction is denied it takes the reins
into its own hands regardless.

It is in this connection that poverty acts as so great an
incentive to prostitution. The utter barrenness of life, the
dreary, hopeless outlook, the sharp contrast between poverty
and wealth, and all the while the door barred just by vir-
tue. At every street corner pleasure and ease, and at least
simulated love, are beckoning, and the lust to live is strong.

The figures gathered with respect to the sources of pros-
titution are very illuminating. Parent-Duchatelet reported
that among a series of Parisian prostitutes 1441 were
brought into the life through poverty, 1425 by the seduc-
tion of lovers who abandoned them, and 1255 by the loss

The Origm and Causes of Prostitution 69

of parents by death or other causes.18 The enormous pro-
portion of ex-maidservants in the ranks of prostitution indi-
cates the relation of isolation and the lack of a full personal
life to the problem. Parent-Duchatelet found that in Paris
domestic servants furnished the largest contingent to prosti-
tution and his findings were confirmed by Gross-Hoffinger
and Baumgarten in Vienna. Blaschko reported that in
Berlin 51 per cent of the prostitute class was derived from
girls in domestic service, and Merrick in his work in Mil-
bank Prison showed that 53 per cent of the prostitutes had
formerly been engaged in domestic service.19 Sawyer found
that among 2000 prostitutes 43 per cent had been servants.
The age at which seduction occurs also throws light on
the problem.

From a series of 582 girls Dr. Pileur derived the follow-
ing table:

AGES AT WHICH GIRLS WEBE SEDUCED.
6 were seduced when from 10-11 years old

0 (( « « .. H-12 " "

8 " " " " 12-13 " "

24 " " " " 13-14 " "

50 " " " " 14-15 " "

142 " " " " 15-16 " "

106 " " " " 16-17 " "

86 " " " " 17-18 " "

67 " " " " 18-19 " "

38 " " " " 19-20 " "

24 " " " " 20-21 « "

11 " « " " 21-22 " "

11 " " " " 22-23 " "

3 " « « « 23-24 " "

1 was " " " 24-25 " "
3 were " " " 25-26 " "

14 Parent-DuchAtelet. De la, Prostitution.
"G. P. Merrick. Work among the Fallen.

70 The Laws of Sea:

Another table compiled by Rev. G. P. Merrick is of inter-
est:

AGES AT WHICH GIRLS WEEK SEDUCED.

11 were seduced before 11 years of age

36 " " between 11-12 years of age

104. " " " 12-13 years of age

358 " " " 14-15 years of age

1192 " " " 15-16 years of age

1425 " " " 16-17 years of age

1369 " " " 17-18 years of age

1158 " " " 18-20 years of age

947 " " " 20-21 years of age

703 " " " 21-22 years of age

The evidence comprised in these tables indicates that
the maximum number of seductions occur between the ages
of 15 and 20, at an age period when the perspective on life
is immature and the desire for adventure and amusement is
most compelling. Statistics compiled by other students
agree closely with these findings.

From a study of human nature it is clear that the sex-
ual impulse in the young is not only concerned with the
gratification of the sexual appetites, but that it appears as
the desire for companionship, beauty and opportunity. As
the maturing young of any species tend to wander and
seek their mates in response to the growing sexual urge, so
among mankind youth tends to break its bonds in adoles-
cence, and at this time especially needs adequate protection.

Social and economic customs which predicate the exist-
ence of large numbers of young unmarried persons of both
sexes predicate the existence of prostitution as well, for
monogamy, not celibacy, appears to be the natural order
of human sexual life. A man who cannot afford to sup-
port a wife and children can at least contribute a share
toward prostitution, and this he will do as long as society
deprives him of the natural outlet for his sexual impulses.

The Origin and Causes of Prostitution 71

Prostitution is but the inevitable counterpart of preju-
dices and customs which render monogamy impracticable as \
an enduring institution. After marriage, when the family
has reached larger dimensions than the father can support,
or when the wife's health had been wrecked as a result of
over-abundant fecundity, the tendency is again for the man
to resort to prostitution for the satisfaction of his emo-'
tional needs. Prostitutes everywhere report that their trade
is in large measure financed by married men, who, weary
of the indifference or antagonism of their wives, turn to
public women for sympathy and gratification.

Thus they break the dull monotony of a life that is lack-
ing in intellectual and emotional stimulus. Having been
forced into the position of being merely wage-slaves for the
family, they fulfill this duty, but substitute fictitious ro-
mance for what under happier conditions might have been
a genuine relationship. Here again the demand is not neces-
sarily for variety in sexual partners: it is rather for a
sympathetic and stimulating sex partner who is not so
overwhelmed with the duties of motherhood that wifehood
is rendered impossible. Present economic conditions, par- /
ticularly in the absence of effective methods of birth control, (
place monogamy practically beyond the reach of a large \
proportion of the population. Yet ever increasingly the /
human race drifts toward monogamy as the ideal, and in- \
justice and prejudice which a generation ago seemed ada-
mant, crumble to make way for the coming order. Every-
where the lines are being more tightly drawn around com-
mercialized vice; regulation and segregation are no longer
compatible with public opinion. The male as well as the
female factor in the spread of venereal disease is becoming
recognized, and women with political power in their hands
are beginning to demand the substitution of a single stand-
ard of morals for prostitution. The economic revolution
which is in process today bids fair to bridge the gap be-
tween extreme wealth and poverty, thereby laying the finan-

72 The Laws of Sex

cial basis for monogamous marriage in place of prostitu-
tion.

The protection of minors against seduction is also mak-
ing constant progress, and measures such as the Mann
Act, which a generation ago would have been unthinkable,
are being daily put in operation. In literature, in the drama,
in legislative halls, and in the police court, a new attitude
toward prostitution is becoming apparent. Even public
health officials, who at one time were unanimous in support-
ing regulated prostitution, are coming to realize that the
problem of venereal disease is intimately associated with
the repression of the social evil.

The rise and fall of prostitution represents but one phase
in sexual evolution. It is the intermediate step between
marriage as an institution for the preservation of the racial
life and marriage as an instrument for sexual selection.
As a necessary relief for economic slavery and as an inevita-
ble concomitant to the subjection and isolation of women,
prostitution has served its purpose; the unjust vengeance
wreaked upon the scarlet women has inscribed chastity
among the 'essential sexual virtues. Before the end of
another century it may be predicted that prostitution will
appear as grotesque and impossible a relation between the
sexes, as the earlier customs of marriage by capture or
marriage by purchase now seem to civilized human beings.

CHAPTER IV

THE DUAL NATURE OF SEX

In the realm of sex as well as elsewhere, natural selection
has played and is playing a very important role. It has
been a determining influence in the development of marriage
and the future will see its modifying effects upon this in-
stitution. Under Civilization the sex impulse has undergone
a fundamental transformation.

From an animal instinct toward reproduction based upon
physical appetites alone, the mysterious living thing called
Love has arisen, characterized by its extreme power of
individualization. Passion has changed from the carnal to
the spiritual level, and here must be sought the natural
power that has forced mankind through the ages ever in-
creasingly to revolt against promiscuity in sex.

In Love, as in Marriage, a true function may be recog-
nized which makes it of fundamental value to the race.
Sexual selection at the present day is epitomized in spiritual
love; it is of untold moment to the race, for when it is
freed from the unnatural shackles of gold and ambition i€
will be of supreme power in molding the actual germ plasm
of the race.

Even in the dark ages of sex, in the close of which we
still are living, mankind has mystically realized that the
only right basis of sex is love ; that sexual relations founded
upon crude physical appetites, greed or social aspirations
are antagonistic to a spiritual law. It is for this reason
that prostitution, while tolerated, has never been respected,
for when men buy the body of a woman for their lust, they

73

74 Tlie Laws of Sex

darkly realize that she barters something that they have
no right to buy, and she no right to sell.

The struggle of the centuries just past represents the
evolution of the blind instinct of reproduction toward the
conscious creative instinct of an aroused and responsible
humanity. During this epoch we have seen the love between
man and woman regarded as essentially vile, reacted against
by the institution of celibacy, degraded by the practices of
prostitution and now at last guarded by a voluntary
chastity on the part of more than one-half the race.
Chastity is to sex love what reason is to the mind; it
predicates balance, power, usefulness, as opposed to aberra-
tion, futility and waste. Sex, like words, is a means to
expression, it is sane or it is mad; it is beautiful or it is
ugly in proportion as it expresses genuine love or shameful
bestiality.

Since the whole future of the race and the ultimate
development of man is absolutely dependent upon the right
use of the sex function, it is of supreme importance that all
effort in molding human laws and customs should be
directed in accordance with the intrinsic laws of sex. The
time is past when the Gordian knot could be cut by vows
of celibacy. Sex is affirmative, not negative, so far as the
future is concerned. The object of mankind must be not to
deny the obligations of sex, but so to direct sex life as to
insure to each member of the race the highest benefit and
happiness that can be derived from this supreme function.

As the sexes tend to approach numerical equality, mo-
nogamy would seem to be the most just relationship between
the sexes. Moreover, only under monogamy is it possible
for sexual selection to approach perfection. The man who
chooses many women as the mothers of his children ob-
viously does not use his best discrimination in selecting the
co-parent for his child, for among many there must of
necessity be some who are less worthy than the others.
The restriction which monogamy entails in the selection

The Dual Nature of Sex 75

of a single mate, predicates a more discreet and careful
choice of the co-parent of a child than would be the case
under polygamy, polyandry or promiscuity. Doubtless
this is one of the functional values of monogamy that has
contributed to its survival in the process of natural selec-
tion.

Man is by nature a nest-building creature, the home
with its comforts and consolation offers him a background
which he vitally needs. Both for parents and children the
monogamous home offers the best medium for ethical and
cultural development. In maturity children afford an in-
comparable interest and stimulus toward effort, and the
life of the individual is incomplete unless he knows the joy
of his own and his children's children.

The duties and obligations of sex in regard to children
have in the past frequently come in conflict with the desire
of the individual in selecting a mate. Marriage has been
entered upon at an early age before either the youth or
the maiden was sufficiently developed to make a wise choice
of a life partner, and considerations such as social stand-
ing and money have taken precedence over natural selec-
tion. In addition, parents have unduly influenced the de-
cision of their children, as, for example, in Japan, where at
the present time among the upper classes the bride and the
bridegroom often meet for the first time on their wedding
morning. Caste also has operated to defeat sexual selec-
tion, for the upbringing of the upper and the lower classes
has been so markedly different as to make marriage between
persons of different rank a practical impossibility.

Many a prince has loved a peasant maiden with true
integrity, but the difference in their habits inherent in their
caste has resulted in a lack of congeniality in their tastes
sufficient to render life together intolerable. To a con-
siderable extent, democracy has eliminated the class bar-
riers to sexual selection, permitting the individual a range
of choice that was denied under the old aristocratic order,

76 The Laws of Sex

and many tragedies that form the theme of old romances
are now done away with.

The chief impediments to free sexual selection to-day
are, first the educational and social systems which decree a
separation of the sexes during their adolescent years, and
second, the economic dependence of women. Genuine friend-
ship and congenial tastes are at the basis of all happy,
human relationships, and an educational and social system
which affords no opportunities for the mingling of the
sexes while they are at work denies the very framework
of friendship. People must be educated in a similar manner
if they are to find one another's companionship agreeable,
for a sympathetic insight into one's interests is indis-
pensable to compatibility. The argument that is fre-
quently advanced against coeducation, that it furthers
the interest of young people in one another as potential
life partners, is in reality a strong argument to the con-
trary. Marriage is so important a step in the life of the
individual that it justifies the expenditure of any amount
of time and thought that is necessary toward a wise de-
cision. The wide range of choice under natural conditions
that is indispensable to true sexual selection, cannot be
achieved if the sexes are arbitrarily separated during most
of the years preceding matrimony. Boys and girls must
be trained to live decently together. It is a fact worthy
of observation that marriages between nurses and doctors,
and between men and women students at professional schools
are conspicuously happy marriages.

The medium of the ball room, the dance hall and the social
whirl is wholly undesirable as the field forx choice, for it
presents young people to one another under unnatural con-
ditions, and obscures rather than discloses their genuine
worth,. The most popular girl at a dance is usually the
one who knows best how to display her sex charms to ad-
vantage, and who is not ashamed to cater to the lower
impulses in men, and the most popular man is often the

The Dual Nature of Sex 77

one who, through his unsavory connection with many women,
has learned how to play upon the feminine sexual instincts.
Polish and grace and the other accompaniments to light
and idle living win out over the more solid and wholesome
virtues, and the girl frequently selects her life mate be-
cause he is the best dancing partner and wears socks and
ties to match, and is oblivious to the qualities that are of
permanent worth. A fine complexion, naturally curly hair,
or an astute dressmaker, frequently determines the young
man's choice, and he is later chagrined to find that none
of these things necessarily predicates a devoted wife or
a good housekeeper. Marriage based upon the instinct
of sex alone, undisciplined and untutored by long acquaint-
ance under disillusioning circumstances, is perilous in
the extreme, for the beloved is too often merely a lay
model draped with the day dreams of autoerotism. An
intimate handclasp, or a flash of bright eyes, awakens the
slumbering senses, and of a sudden because the racial life
has been pricked, the awakener becomes invested with all the
virtues. Deep within the breast of everyone, hidden but
constant, is the passion for creation that has brought the
race forward out of primeval darkness. When sex first
answers sex, it is not the communion of two human beings,
it is the cry of the race for life, the cry that echoes down
the ages. Mate answers mate, and all the golden memory
of love past, and all the hope of love to come whispers
that this is reality. Sexual love is strangely distinct from
judgment and perspective, for the hand that unlocks the
heart touches a divine spring and its owner is forthwith
clothed in divinity. The subtle links that bind one genera-
tion to another are but too often the chains of matrimony.
Imaginary people marry one another, and it is only in
the lees of the cup of life that their true lineaments be-
come apparent. The combination of the racial and the
personal life which is embodied in every individual, is at
the basis of both the happiness and the unhappiness in

78 The Laws of Sex

sexual relationships. If the individual who gains grace
as the racial partner is also endowed with the personal
characteristics that are essential to friendship and com-
panionability, happiness results and a human relationship
far more significant and binding than Platonism permits,
is realized. But if the individual falls too far short of
the ideal or differs too radically from it, repulsion ensues
and actual hatred and disgust take the place of the initial
attraction. This is nature's way of dissolving unions that
are based upon unreal premises, and for forcing human
beings to continue their search for the best co-parent for
their children. The revulsion that takes place in love
when it finds itself disillusioned is almost as strong as the
power of love that brings human beings together. Friends
who develop uncongenialities or who differ widely in their
opinions can part peaceably and still retain a comfortable
modicum of mutual respect and affection, but those in
whose hearts love has died find existence together like liv-
ing in a sepulchre where the foul breath of corruption and
decay sickens the very atmosphere.

The custom, reinforced by law, which demands that men
and women shall remain mates when they no longer love
one another, is not only cruel, but is contrary to a deep
and subtle ordinance of nature. For society to condone
and even encourage sexual relations when love has perished,
is to reduce marriage to a kind of prostitution for which
the price offered is public opinion.

This degradation of marriage through inelastic law, has
contributed in no small measure to the toleration of illicit
relationships outside marriage, for though custom may be
as firm as adamant, human sympathy is not so hard, and
Love is his own best vindicator. The man and the woman
who cast discretion to the winds and who defy the poisoned
darts of smug hypocrisy and prim asceticism, find in many
faces an answering look of understanding, and feel in many
presences a corroboration of their courage.

The Dual Nature of Sex 79

For centuries among the very great, even in the case
of women, love has been recognized as being a law unto
itself, and while humanity has caviled to some extent and
wreaked its spiteful vengeance, it has recognized that a
supreme passion is not to be brooked by man-made laws,
and it has looked askance and wondered and secretly wor-
shipped- None but a Puritan can question the validity of
the tie that brought George Eliot and Lewes together, and
Romeo and Juliet, brazenly displayed upon the stage in
flagrante dilectu, have been the romantic idols of a dozen
generations and promise to retain their popularity. Shel-
ley, Goethe, Wagner, and a whole host of other great
men including geniuses and kings and princes, have main-
tained by their own lives that the claims of love exceed
the claims of an arbitrary human law, and people have
believed them. While harsh judgments are passed upon
those who violate the marriage custom, there is still a good
modicum of sympathetic insight when it appears that the
interlopers are activated by a true spirit of love. All the
world loves a lover more or less, in spite of wedlock.

Whence then the tragedies that fill yellow-backed French
novels to the bursting, and form the central theme for
most romantic literature? Fiction, to secure an audience,
must play upon chords that are fairly superficial, for emo-
tions that are not understood are always uninteresting.
The root of these tragedies in real life or in literature is
twofold, and lies, first, in the conflict between the social and
the personal obligations inherent in the sexual relation,
and second, in the fact that love is essentially a creative
spirit, and grows pale and wan when removed from the
medium of action. It has been seen that "marriage was
derived from the family, not the family from marriage";
that it has survived the test of time as an institution for
the protection of children, and for the insurance of the
fulfillment of mutual sex responsibilities. It is preeminently
a social, not a personal relationship, and its benefits accrue,

80 The Laws of Sex

not to the individual, but to the race. He who violates
wedlock commits an anti-social act of no small consequence,
for he thereby repudiates the claim of generations yet un-
born for protection by the social order, and casts the race
adrift from paternal responsibility. If love lasted, if it
could be relied upon without reinforcement to live up to
its social obligations, marriage would doubtless never have
evolved, as it would not have been necessary; but love is
frail, and is too often merely a counterfeit for sensuality,
and the lives and happiness of little children cannot in
mercy be entrusted to such a whimsical emotion. Chil-
dren live on though love has died, and the responsibility
for their welfare is vested by nature in their progenitors.
Love without bonds is quick to act and slow to reckon,
and mating has results which outlive the sexual act by
meany aeons.

The world is full of women old before their time, foul
with the stain of sin upon them, broken with disease, child-
less, or with a little child dead in its grave, poor, miserable,
friendless, without a home. These are the women who have
believed men when they promised them love without mar-
riage, and their lives give ground for the just resentment
of society at the violation of wedlock. He who defies the
marriage custom defies as well the welfare of the race and
earns his ostracism.

While marriage is not designed to set the limits of
sexual love between human beings, it is admirably adapted
to fixing the boundaries of male responsibility in sexual
relations. Nature herself at the outset, in her striving for
immortality, has indicated the proper persons to care for
the child by instituting parenthood. By giving the child
a father as well as a mother, she has endeavored to secure
its safety, but she has omitted one vital point in her
scheme of creation, and this the community has endeavored
to fill in by the institution of marriage. Nature has or-
dained no practical means for detecting the putative father,

The Dual Nature of Sex 81

and men do not desire either to support the results of
other men's sexual adventures or to see young children
die pitifully for lack of care and nutriment. Motherhood
is obvious enough, but fatherhood is another matter, and
all experience goes to prove that fatherhood, unsupple-
mented by marriage laws, is almost wholly irresponsible.
The man who voluntarily cares for his illegitimate children
is in this day almost unknown, though in the time of mor-
ganatic marriages he often willingly fulfilled his obliga-
tions. When marriage was ruled out between persons of
different classes, society recognized the claims of love and
accepted mutual responsibility as a sufficient substitute
for formal marriage. Democracy has invalidated this ex-
cuse for pseudo-relationships, and morganatic marriage has
been thrown into the discard along with polygamy. Kings
and their mistresses have to some extent gone out of
fashion, but their influence is still felt as justifying illicit
relationships. The example of the King of Spain and the
little kings who disport themselves in Greenwich Village
and elsewhere, is taken by the young as giving precedent to
light and sensuous sexual conduct. In their inexperience
they do not understand the meaning of love, with the result
that lust and irresponsibility parade as freedom in love,
transforming liberty overnight into unhallowed license.
The man, and more especially the woman, who, at the dic-
tates of true love, lives in disregard of marriage, contributes
in some measure to break down the preposterous prejudice
against freedom in sexual affairs, which is responsible for
much disorder; but, and here lies the danger, they also
lend the light of their genuine passion to abortive and
sickly flames which scorch not only the race but their un-
disciplined possessors. Freedom in love, to fulfill its racial
function, must operate to insure a minimum of error in
sexual choice and the improvement of the racial stock
through sexual selection, but neither of these objectives is
achieved when shallow sensuality, counterfeiting love, takes

82 The Laws of Sea:

the law into its own hands and despoils sex of its usefulness.
He who lives above the law must prove his right to in-
dependence by the good fruits of his conduct. The philan-
derer who sows venereal disease, and drinks his pleasure out
of another's cup, would have trouble in establishing his as-
sumed prerogative on such a basis.

The touchstone of love, the proof of its actuality, is in
the test of its creative power. In the Symposium, Plato
says that the lover because he wishes to appear well in the
eyes of the beloved surpasses himself in his exertions and
brings all his abilities to light for admiration. In the
earlier days, before ever the arts and sciences were even
dreamed of, the only acts of creation in which men and
women could participate were those which involved off-
spring and the arts of war and domesticity. To-day men
and women have spiritual as well as physical children,
and love can give birth to both. The artist who with colors
and a brush transforms a barren canvas into a treasure
for the ages finds much of his inspiration in sex. The
great sculptor, the great musician, the great actor or
actress, have almost always been the great lovers as well.
Discreet biographers have not always told the full story,
but even so the fact is clear that sex has played a con-
spicuous part in the lives of those who have given the
world its most precious possessions.

It is in this respect that the ostracism usually attendant
upon violation of the marriage laws has contributed to the
sexual tragedies so often rehearsed in real b'fe and in fic-
tion. Men and women, in the first bloom of love, have
supposed that they could live together regardless of their
work-a-day medium for self-expression, and love, the creator,
has transformed their paradise into a desert. "Nee sine
te nee teum vivere possum." This is the ultimate dictum of
love when it becomes an end unto itself and not a means
to creative effort.

It is an interesting commentary that a large proportion

The Dual Nature of Sex 88

of the applications for divorce are made by childless
couples, for it leads to the inference that where there is
no ground for mutual interest and effort, disharmony is
apt to develop. The tragedy of the yellow-backed French
novel and its prototype in real life is inevitable as long
as human beings assume that sex can give satisfaction in
itself alone, and not through its stimulus to self-expression,
for love is the cup of life and life is action.

The twofold significance of sex, first in the life of the
individual and second in the life of the race, makes it in-
cumbent upon society to differentiate in its moral rulings
between the purely individual obligations in sex, involved
in the relationship between two human beings, and the social
obligations which result from their union. Despite assump-
tions to the contrary, love and marriage as they at present
exist are two very different realities. To classify all
sexual relationships in wedlock as moral, and all those
outside wedlock as immoral, is to regard sex purely from
the racial point of view and necessitates a repudiation of
love as the essential basis for the relation between the sexes.
On the other hand, to accept "free love," which is but an-
other name for sexual license, is to disregard the social
obligations in sex, and to imperil the continued development
of the species. The very existence of the social evil indi-
cates conclusively that mankind has not yet reached a
stage in evolution where anarchy in sex is productive of
good results, for most people live below not above the law
when they are freed from the restraints which it imposes.
Men and women are neither wise enough nor strong enough
to live their lives successfully in the absence of human law.
Their instincts lead them into ways that are fraught with
danger and disaster for themselves and others. This being
so, it is but fair to give to rising generations the benefit
of the past experience of the race, and to mark the roads
that have been found to lead to death and disillusionment
in such fashion that they will not tempt the youth to follow

84 The Laws of Sea:

them. Law is neither cruel nor coercive when it states a
known and constant fact regarding conduct, and even
penalization is fruitful in happiness if it serves as a de-
terrent to unjust and subversive action. It would be no
inconvenience to humanity to have a law defining gravita-
tion placed upon the statute books. It would cause no
trouble if death itself were set as the penalty for gross
infringement of this law, for nature herself exacts this
punishment independently of human decisions.

Under a just system only the ignorant and the vicious
come in conflict with the pronouncements of the state, for
the virtuous desire to live in harmony with true principles
of ethics. The law against larceny or murder, for example,
is no inconvenience to the virtuous man, for his desire
conforms to the law. It is only against the thief or the
murderer that the law becomes operative. Similarly in
the realm of sex under a system based upon practical ethics
the man who desired to live his sex life honorably, would
find the law an aid rather than a hindrance toward the
achievement of his purpose. Only those who wished to
accomplish their own satisfaction at the expense of others
would come in conflict with the laws of society.

As Nora, in The Doll's House, innocently forged a note
with the best of intentions, ignorant of the social results
which such conduct entailed, so many men today in the
absence of the statutized experience of the race in the
realm of sex indulge their sexual impulses without the least
idea that they are committing anti-social acts involving
grave consequences. The function of law is to define the
limits of personal liberty in the relations of human beings
to one another. All must be insured equally the right to
the pursuit of happiness, and those who would infringe the
rights of others must be restrained from their unworthy con-
duct by the operation of the law.

In the campaign of sex education which is now being
conducted by the government and by privately organized

The Dual Nature of Sex 85

societies, it is repeatedly stated that the maximum happi-
ness in sex can be achieved by both men and women
through pre-marital chastity and monogamous marriage.
This is undoubtedly true in the case of women, for society
heavily penalizes the woman who trangresses and demands
proportionate payment for her offense against the family,
but it is not by any means equally true in the case of the
individual man in the present state of law and public
opinion. Between the ages of 17 and 25, when marriage
is ordinarily out of the question, the sexual impulse is
very strong and is undoubtedly a potential source of intense
gratification. Sexual adventures involving light loves are
of great interest and stimulus and may even give the in-
dividual boy a vast amount of real experience and in-
formation. If he escapes venereal disease, and if his vic-
tim is too young or too helpless to invoke outside aid
when his fancy wearies of her, it is highly probable that,
barring the intervention of the Almighty, he may secure
for himself far more sexual pleasure than does the chaste
lad who respects the rights of women and children. In the
war, when death waited for young men just a step ahead,
many of them took their fun where they found it, and it
is extremely doubtful if those who did not become infected
with venereal disease or entangled with legal difficulties,
such as forced marriage, ever sincerely regretted their con-
duct. If in the face of death men feel so little moral
chagrin at indulging their promiscuous sexual impulses, it
is scarcely to be supposed that on the broad level of life,
when retribution would appear to be even less imminent,
conscience alone should be able to inflict pain in any degree
consonant with the abandoned joy of moonlit love ad-
ventures.

Society has given men license to steal their sexual
pleasures out of the lives of women, and at the expense of
racial welfare. If men were permitted to steal money as
freely as they are love without regard for the rights of

86 The Laws of Sex

others, if they could sign false checks with as little fear as
they sign false love letters, if they could secure loans with-
out interest and without giving any security whatever, it
is questionable whether the thief would not get more
pleasure than the honest man in practical living. It is cer-
tain that he would get more of this world's goods at a
less expense of effort, for he would take what he pleased
and let his honest brother pay the price of production.
The community which permits the violation of the rights
of one to the unjust advantage of another puts a premium
on base conduct and vindicates the individual in immoral
or anti-social relationships. The only real impediment that
stands between men and their enjoyment of licentiousness
at the expense of women and children is venereal disease,
and it is noteworthy that in the realm of sex much of the
legal machinery that has been employed in the past in the
realm of sex has been directed toward removing this ob-
stacle and not toward insuring the equal right of sexual
happiness for men and women.

In the passage of legislation regarding sex or any other
kind of human conduct, it must always be remembered that
under a democracy, the law cannot differ too greatly from
established standards of living if it is to be respected.
When the law varies widely from accepted principles of
conduct, it becomes an administrative impossibility to en-
• force its pronouncements. The blue laws in many states
which at one time voiced popular sentiment, and which at
that time were enforceable, are a case in point. Their
presence on the statute books today is immaterial except
that they tend to bring the law into disrepute as being
ridiculous.

While it is clear that the general principles of conduct
such as liberty, equality, justice and mutual responsibility
apply to sex as well as to commerce, or to any other branch
of human affairs, still until the present time it would have
been idle to write these principles down as statutes in the

The Dual Nature of Sex 87

realm of sex, for it would have been impossible to secure
their enforcement.

It is obviously the business of the state to define the
limits of personal liberty in the realm of sex as well as
elsewhere, but while one sex alone had complete control
over the courts, the police and the legislative assemblies,
it was inconceivable that regulations designed to limit the
unjust prerogatives of this sex should be written into law
or enforced even if hypothetically statutized. The sub-
jection of women has made rational legislation in this field
unthinkable, and has facilitated discriminatory procedures
such as regulation, segregation, and the present venereal
disease quarantine regulations.

The citizens of any free country have the right to de-
mand from their government liberty, justice, equality be-
fore the law, and the protection of their constitutional
rights from violation by other citizens. When these prin-
ciples are embodied in law defining the right limits of sexual
conduct, it will be seen that the present marriage custom
in no wise conforms to true sexual morality. In the first
place it does not recognize the dual nature of sex, and unnec-
essarily sacrifices the personal to the racial obligations in-
herent in the sex function, and in the second place it acts as
an impediment to the natural law of sexual selection, for it
denies to the individual adequate opportunity to rectify an
error in choice when he has once come under the yoke of
matrimony.

Marriage as it at present exists, supplemented by prosti-
tution, is solely the result of an effete morality associated
with the licentiousness of men and the subjection of women.
Since monogamous religious marriage was formalized by
the Council of Trent in the year 1563, great changes have
come over the world, especially in the relations of men and
women. The quality of an action which rendered it good
in those distant times, cannot be safely predicated to mark
the boundaries of morality in any range of life in the

88 Tlie Laws of Sex

twentieth century. The absolute duty of the state to define
the right limits of sexual conduct and to enforce its regula-
tions is too obvious to admit of serious question, but the
law must apply to the epoch in which it is written and not
to an order of civilization representing the culture of the
dead age of Feudalism.

CHAPTER V

THE ETHICAL ASPECTS OF BIRTH CONTROL

The statistics which have been compiled by the pro-
ponents of birth control in the various countries where the
education of the masses in the matter of contraceptive
methods is not interfered with by the state indicate beyond
question that the apprehensions of those who are opposed
to birth control have no basis in practical fact. The popu-
lation has not automatically dwindled to the danger point,
neither has immorality increased so far as can be ascer-
tained and monogamous marriage still continues to be the
recognized relationship between the sexes. All that appears
to have happened is that somewhat fewer children have
been born, but this occurrence has been more than com-
pensated by the greater proportionate diminution in in-
fantile mortality. In Holland, for example, where educa-
tion in birth control methods has been carried on openly
since 1881 and where it is fully sanctioned by the govern-
ment, there has been a diminution of approximately 25 per
cent in the birth rate with a coincident increase of 66 per
cent in the number of persons living until adult years. In
other words the number of persons who attain their majority
in Holland to-day is actually greater than it was before
instruction in contraceptive methods was commenced. In
America, where the transmission of knowledge of birth
control methods has been made a felony, of all the children
born only one child out of fifteen lives to reach his twenty-
first year. All of the agony of parturition, all of the
prenatal inconvenience and distress of the mother, all of
the endless time and money and care that has been poured

89

90 The Lams of Sea;

out to make these little lives possible is utterly wasted so
far as the adult and productive population is concerned.
Only one child out of five lives even until his first birthday,
so it is clear that in this country the problem of popula-
tion is more acutely dependent upon diminishing the rate
of infantile mortality than upon increasing the number of
children born. When it is considered that a child is actually
a burden to the state in point of production until he reaches
at least his fifteenth year, it may be seen that the method
at present pursued for keeping up the population is neither
economical nor humane. The vital statistics offered by the
Neo-Malthusianists are very convincing on two important
points: first, public knowledge of birth control methods
does not result in an alarming diminution of population;
and second, a decrease in the mortality rate appears to
coincide with the adoption of contraceptive methods.

An intimate knowledge of family life in the lower classes
predisposes to credence in these figures, for it is every-
where evident that where there are more children in a
family than the father can afford to support, some of the
children die from lack of care or from actual malnutrition.
Many women are also physically unable to bear as many
living children as their fertility would presuppose, with the
result that miscarriages and still births are often the only
fruit of conception. Here again unnecessary and useless
wastage of the human resources of the nation is involved,
for it avails nothing so far as the race is concerned for
a woman to produce non-viable children, and her own
energies are exhausted and her strength depleted in the
course of the process. Reproduction is a positive asset to
the state only in so far as it eventuates in adult human
beings of normal race stock who are equipped by nature
and training to contribute toward the welfare of the com-
monwealth. Degenerates, defectives and children who
perish before they reach a productive age are a hindrance
to racial development and a handicap to normal members

The Ethical Aspects of Birth Control 91

of the community in their pursuit of happiness. At the
present time the defective, insane and criminal classes form
an alarming proportion of the population.

Of all children in America of school-going age it is
estimated that over 15 per cent are sub-normal, mentally,
and that about 31/2 Per cent are markedly feeble-minded.1
These children can never, no matter how elaborate or how
expensive their education may be, develop to full normal
productivity.2 The state would be richer and better equipped
to sustain its normal members if these children had never
come into existence. The latest statistics of the U. S. Cen-
sus Bureau show that the United States is at present sup-
porting in institutions an insane population of about
239,820 at an annual cost of approximately $45,000,000,
and that the inmates of the penal and reform institutions
number approximately 150,000. It is estimated that about
250,000 abortions are performed annually in America, and
that probably 50,000 women lose their lives as a result of the
operation, while the number of miscarriages and still births is
only matter for hazard.3 Clinical experience would indicate
that of the products of conception not more than three-
fourths develop into viable children. In addition a large
number of married people who desire to have children have
become sterile or have had their reproductive power seriously
impaired as a result of gonorrhoeal or syphilitic infection. F.
Kehrer has shown that a considerable proportion of marital
sterility is due to venereal infection in the husband con-
tracted before marriage, and the large number of one child
marriages due to gonorrhoeal contamination of the wife
also contributes largely to a diminution of the birth rate.4

The importance of venereal disease as a substantial
factor in race suicide has been consistently overlooked for

1 Reports published by The National Committee for Mental Hygiene,
50 Union Square, New York City.

* U. U. Anderson. Mental Defect in a Southern State.

* Fielding. Sanity in Sex.

4 Ernest Finger. Blenorrhoea of the Sexual Organs.

92

the absence of reliable vital statistics with regard to the
incidence of syphilis and gonorrhoea has obscured the rela-
tion of these infections to the diminishing birth rate.

In considering the problem of population it is clear that
a reduction in the infantile mortality rate is quite as effi-
cient a method of sustaining the population as an increase
in the birth rate unaccompanied by a proportionate de-
crease in the number of deaths.

If the objective is merely to increase the number of adult
citizens of the United States it would be far more expeditious
and humane for the government to bend its efforts toward
improving the economic and hygienic condition of its people
rather than to demand that its women should continue to
bear a larger number of children than either the family
or the state can successfully bring up to normal adulthood.

In point of fact, the problem of population is rapidly
becoming not so much a matter of underpopulation as of
overpopulation. Some interesting statistical researches
which have recently been published by Dr. Raymond Pearl
of the School of Hygiene of the Johns Hopkins University
show that within the brief space of another hundred years
at the present rate of reproduction the world will contain
as many individuals as the surface of the earth is capable
of providing with the actual necessities of subsistence.5 If
after that reproduction were to continue at {he present
rate famine would intervene .and the population would either
be seriously undernourished, as it is .now in China and India,
or death itself would be called upon to settle the problem.
Dr. Pearl has constructed a curve based upon data secured
from the U. S. Census Bureau showing that population
tends to proceed in accordance with definite mathematical
law. This curve is the same as that followed by the body
weight and also occurs in auto-catalytic chemical reactions.
It is characterized by a relatively slow initial rise followed

B Raymond Pearl. On the Rate of Growth of the Population of the
U. 8. Since 1790 and Its Mathematical Representation.

The Ethical Aspects of Birth Control 93

by an abrupt increase which subsides again at the crest
into a straight line reaching to infinity. The asymtote
represents the maximum population which the resources of
the earth are capable of maintaining under bare living
conditions. By placing two flies of different sex in a
circumscribed area, as in a glass jar or bottle, and permit-
ting them to reproduce indefinitely, the same characteristic
curve of reproduction automatically appears. There is
at first a slow increase, then an abrupt rise and finally the
crest of the curve beyond which an increase in number is
impossible. The year 1914 represents the point in the
ascending curve when inclination toward the asymtote is
first apparent. In other words, the population of the earth
has now nearly reached its maximum practical propor-
tions and war, pestilence, famine, or birth control will soon
be called upon to reduce the number of the world's citizens.
Either fewer people must in the next century be born or
death must use his scythe more freely in clearing the field
for future generations.

Among the lower orders nature herself acts to restrict
the overproduction of any given species. By cold and
heat, by drought and flood, by pitting one species against
another in the bitter struggle for existence, nature arranges
her plan so that no one group shall find it a practical pos-
sibility to overrun the surface of the earth at the expense
of others. But man in his abundant wisdom has subdued
the forces of nature, making the wind and the waterfall his
slaves, transforming the destroying power of the torrent
into his docile servant and driving his former enemies of the
jungle far into hiding or domesticating them into meek, help-
less cattle doing his bidding or yielding provender for his ta-
ble. The natural checks to his preponderant breeding have
more and more under civilization been set aside until in the
twentieth century only his own will and the invisible enemies
of mankind, social injustice and disease, act to restrain his
excessive fertility. In addition, the altruistic impulses

94 The Laws of Sex

dictate that even the weak, the degenerate and the diseased
shall enjoy tenure of life, with the result that the efficient
members of the race drag constantly after them a dead
weight of human wreckage which breeds and breeds again,
polluting the racial life and stemming the onward march
of human progress.

In face of these facts the antagonists of birth control
can scarcely maintain successfully that indiscriminate re-
production can be continued at the present rate without
plunging the human race into inevitable destruction. Cer-
tainly war, pestilence, famine and fratricide are less de-
sirable measures than birth control among civilized people.

It is a strange and remarkable thing to observe in the
history of humanity how fully germ plasm appears to con-
tain the elements essential to progress and racial develop-
ment. Its psychical manifestation in the mind of man
presents invariably the solution to vital problems when
they have become so acute that further progress is de-
pendent upon their solution. Until the present era the
racial demand was quite obviously in behalf of a greater
population. Birth control would have diminished not in-
creased the chances for racial prosperity until the twentieth
century. Now the tide appears to have set in the opposite
direction and the need is for more efficient, better bred
individuals and not merely for a more numerous popula-
tion. The time has come when the eugenic principle of ex-
ercising care and judgment in the selection of the race
stock can to advantage be put into operation and syn-
chronously the demand for birth control is coming more
and more to be heard for all manner and classes of people.
As always the forces of religion and prejudice are ranged
on the conservative side and the Catholic Church particu-
larly, which decrees celibacy for its priests, preaches that
contraceptive methods are anathema. Women must bear
children and continue to bear them, especially in the true

The Ethical Aspects of Birth Control 95

faith ; whether they die in the process or whether the world
reaps any good from it is a secondary consideration.

The main difficulty in the way of birth control, mo-
mentarily omitting the artificial legal impediments in
America from the argument, is the absence of reliable and
aesthetic contraceptive methods which do not impede the
spiritual enjoyment of the sex emotion. The ordinary
methods of the condom, the tampon, the douche or with-
drawal, are all more or less offensive to persons of refined
disposition and are by no means certain to achieve their
objective. Many persons who have consistently practiced
birth control by one or another of these methods have
produced large families without the slightest desire or
intention. Moreover, after the children have been born,
their parents have in an astonishing number of instances
rejoiced at the new members of their household and have
found that they could support additional offspring con-
trary to their expectation. Which indicates that conso-
nantly with propaganda for birth control, and especially
with the methods perfected, adequate teaching in the natural
desirability of parenthood should be instituted, supple-
mented by maternity benefits.

It is of absolute importance that the method of birth
control to be devised, whether it be through the use of the
X-ray, the local application of a specific chemical, or what
not, should render the individual sterile only for a com-
paratively short space of time — a few months or a year, and
that it should not be permanent, for with a change in
economic status children might become greatly desired and
the happiness of the individual be dependent upon his power
of reproduction.

It appears probable that the use of the X-ray may prove
to be a reliable and aesthetic method of preventing con-
ception, for the casual experiments that have been unin-
tentionally performed by physicians and others on them-

96 The Laws of Sex

selves have shown the remarkable efficiency of the X-ray
in producing temporary sterility. Experiments on white
rats indicate that the mature sex cells in the female are
more easily affected than the immature and that in the
male the reverse is the case. It is possible therefore that
this method may offer excellent results in women especially,
if the proper dosage is determined. Since the X-ray has
been found to produce malformations in the developing eggs
of the lower orders it is important that it be tried out ex-
perimentally with great thoroughness before being used on
human beings.

In the sterilization of defectives, criminals and the insane
the X-ray would, if justified experimentally, be a more
humane and less troublesome method than the operative
procedure at present in vogue.

The use of chemicals in birth control would, even if a
reliable drug were discovered, be less desirable than the
X-ray because of aesthetic considerations.

In the practical teaching of birth control the present
methods offer unpleasant subject matter, for the intimate
description of the sex act, and the detailed directions for
local application affect the non-medical mind as porno-
graphic. Modesty and fine feeling are always offended at
the cold application of the facts of physiology to the in-
timate relationship of sex, especially when the individual
is sufficiently developed to regard the relation largely in
its spiritual aspects. The same natural and commendatory
reticence that brings self-respecting people to restrain their
embraces to the privacy of their own homes and to conceal
the manifestations of their mutual affection from the public
view leads them to resent even medical directions associated
with their own sexual acts.

It is probable that a considerable proportion of the
present objection to birth control arises from a native
repugnance to the methods that are of necessity prescribed.
So great a number of people feel that any mention of sex,

The Ethical Aspects of Birth Control 97

whether it be in accord or discord with facts, is in itself
essentially wrong and disgusting, that they naturally con-
demn the plain speaking involved in teaching birth control.
It is probable that the instinctive antagonism of this group
would be considerably softened if a more aesthetic method
could be devised.

The great bulk of the objection to birth control, how-
ever, arises from two antithetical groups — first, the men
who by the viciousness of their own lives have come to
associate enjoyment of sex with prostitution and perver-
sions, and who have themselves in many instances been
rendered sterile by venereal diseases — and second, the
women who have in their virtue so repressed their sexual
instincts that passion has become to a large degree in-
hibited or diverted into other than sexual channels. Both
these groups agree, as do almost all rational beings, that
defectives, criminals and the insane should not be encour-
aged to reproduce, and that the number of children in any
family should not be greatly disproportionate to the family
income. They recommend, however, self-control instead of
birth control, and claim that the sexual function is abused
and degraded when it is divorced from reproduction.

The psychology of these people is not difficult to analyze.
The man who has indulged himself in prostitution looks
upon marriage as an institution for the procreation of
children and does not associate it with the enjoyment of
sexual passions. The use of sex for pleasure in his case
has been so intimately connected with its abuse in illicit
and shameful intercourse that to associate the enjoyment
of sex, not directed toward reproduction, with a virtuous
woman such as his wife, would be to degrade her to the
level of his former sexual partners. The woman, on the
contrary, has received her inhibition as a result of her
horror at the thought of sexual intercourse. From her
earliest youth she has been trained to the belief that sex
is essentially shameful and vile and she regards reproduc-

98 The Laws ojf Sex

tion as a necessary evil which from time to time vindicates
the indignity and prurience of sex relations. In behalf of
the race she feels that reproduction must go on despite
its dependence upon conduct unbecoming adult and self-
respecting human beings, but she would prefer that children
should grow on trees or rosebushes, for the thought of sexual
union revolts and embarrasses her. It is not uncommon
to come across virtuous married women who fully believe
that the pains of child birth were instituted by an all-know-
ing Providence as a penance for sex relations. Indeed, the
teachings of the church have not always varied greatly
from this extraordinary supposition.

There are two mental complexes that frequently differen-
tiate the antagonists from the protagonists of birth control.
One combines the ideas that medical prophylaxis is in-
dispensable and that diseased prostitutes should be quar-
antined; that immorality is unavoidable; that men "can-
not be legislated into virtue," and that sex is thoroughly
honorable only when it is used for reproduction. The other
holds that prophylaxis constitutes the open toleration of
vice and should be made illegal; that prostitution should be
repressed and not regulated; that the double standard of
morals will not always prevail and that sex is of a dual na-
ture and should not be directed exclusively toward procre-
ation.

In addition to these two principal groups there are, of
course, many other combinations of opinions, represented,
for example, by Dr. William G. Robinson and his followers,
who believe as he himself has publicly stated that sexual
promiscuity is not only justifiable but desirable; that it is
destined to increase and that medical prophylaxis can be
relied upon to check its venereal consequences.

A very significant number of the opponents to birth con-
trol are themselves childless, and it is doubtless the fact that
they are denied the joy of parenthood that makes the re-
productive side of the sex function seem so exclusively im-

The Ethical Aspects of Birth Control 99

portant to them. What a person desires poignantly for
himself always seems a natural desire in other people.

Moreover, there is a certain very reasonable basis for the
insistence that procreation should not be too widely removed
from the sex function. When an act is divorced from &ny
of its natural consequences misinterpretation of the act is
apt to ensue with the result that unhappiness often follows
and the individual finds himself incapable of achieving his
desires when it is too late for him to readjust his conduct.
For instance, a certain number of married people who have
practiced birth control for a long period of time and who
later find themselves unable to have children often repent
of their conduct most bitterly and inveigh against their
earlier practices with exaggerated intensity. They would
force all people to use sex for the exclusive purpose of pro-
creation, for in their own case they have found the opposite
procedure to lead to such disappointing consequences.
Alcohol furnishes another example of the perversion of a
natural instinct from its functional usefulness. When a
person drinks not because he is thirsty but for an ulterior
purpose, health is jeopardized and happiness is placed more
and more beyond the range of accessibility.

One of the lessons that has obviously been set by the
Almighty for human beings to learn is the right use of the
sex function and the miracle of the birth of a child is an
essential factor toward comprehension. It is precisely be-
cause parenthood is so clearly worth while, because the
child is the physical embodiment of the spiritual love of
two human beings that apprehension with regard to the
repudiation of the power of procreation under birth con-
trol need not be entertained among civilized people. Con-
trary to the opinion of the antagonists of birth control
children are commonly recognized as being desirable by the
great majority of normal men and women and there are few
married couples who do not desire to have at least one or
two offspring if their economic condition is not too op-

100 The Laws of Sex

pressive. The natural egotism of human beings and their
native desire not to be outdone by their fellows supplements
the sexual instinct, and brings thousands of married women
to the consulting room when they have been rendered sterile
by venereal infection.

The confusion of the terms reproductive instinct and
sexual instinct has done much to place the whole question of
birth control in a prejudiced light before the public. The
instinct to mate, that is the sexual instinct, is a fact ob-
servable throughout the animal world. It has nothing to do,
however, with the conscious desire for reproduction, for
it is inconceivable that the lower orders such as the lion or
the birds should realize that mating even results in procrea-
tion. It is only a short space of time since man discovered
the true relation of the sex act to inheritance.5 Aristotle
says: "The male is the efficient agent and by the motion
of his generative virtue (geniture) creates what is intended
from the matter contained in the female; for the female
always supplies the matter, the male the power of creation
and this is what constitutes one male and the other female.
The body then proceeds from the female, the vital principle
(anima) from the male; for the essence of every body is its
vital principle." 6

Harvey imagined that conception in the uterus was
analogous to conception in the brain and wrote: "And
just as desire arises from a conception of the brain, and
this conception springs from some external object of de-
sire, so also from the male, as being the more perfect animal,
and, as it were the natural object of desire, does the natural
(organic) conception arise in the uterus, even as the animal
conception does in the brain." 7

The discovery at the hands of Leeuwenhoek of the
spermatozoa in 1677, following the improvement and use
of the microscope in the study of reproductive substances

• Frank E. Lillie. The Fertilization Problem.

* Aristotle. De Generations Animaliwn.

TWm. Harvey. Exercitationeg de Gen. Anim., 1651.

The Ethical Aspects of Birth Control 101

gave rise to great interest and the most extravagant theories
in connection with the male and female power of procrea-
tion. "I put this down as a certain truth," wrote Leeuwen-
hoek in 1699, "that the shape of the human body is in-
cluded in an animal of the masculine seed.'*8

Nicholas Hartsolker, in 1694, who claimed priority in
the discovery of the spermatozoa, although his work did
not appear until a year later than Leeuwenhoek's, put for-
ward the theory that the ovum merely furnished a source
of nourishment for the sperm and that a complete male
or female animal was contained in each spermatozoon. This
theory of course excluded the possibility of maternal in-
heritance.

In the eighteenth century two theories of reproduction
were brought forward phrased as follows by Spallanzani:
"The one explains the development of organisms mechani-
cally, the other supposes them to preexist, and waiting only
for fertilization to develop them. The second system has
given birth to two different parties, one believing that the
organism is preformed in the ovum, the other that it is pre-
formed in the spermatozoon."

In the early part of the nineteenth century following a
long series of experiments on the fertilization of frogs Pre-
vost and Dumas concluded that a spermatozoon penetrates
each egg and becomes the rudiment of the nervous system,
and that "the membrane (germ disc) in which it is implanted,
furnishes, by the diverse modification which it undergoes
all the other organs of the embryo."

It was not until 1841 when Lallemand expressed the
opinion of those who believed in the union of the ovum and
the spermatozoon that the importance of the maternal
factor in inheritance came to be recognized.

"Each of the sexes furnishes material already organized

•Phil. Trans., Vol. 31.

* Abb6 Spallanzani. Experiences pour servir it VJiistoire de la
tion des Anirruwx, 1785.
M Provost and Dumas. New Theory of Reproduction, 1824.

102 The Laws of Sex

and living," he wrote. "Fertilization is the union of two
living parts which mutually complete each other and de-
velop in common."

Before this time the mother had been regarded merel}r
as a passive factor in reproduction, as a sort of natural in-
cubator for the male germ cell which alone was supposed
to transmit the life of the species.

Modern investigation initiated by Hertwig and Fol,
and carried on by Fleming, Mark, Van Beneden, Loeb,
Morgan and others, resulted in the nuclear theory, recog-
nizing the duality of all life in which nucleus and cytoplasm
play specific roles, and later developing into the doctrine
of chromosome individuality, which establishes on scientific
grounds common inheritance from both the male and female
parent.

It has now been discovered that one additional chromo-
some receptor comes from the female parent which may
presuppose an accentuated maternal inheritance. Mean-
while mankind has been regarding the mother more as a
vehicle for the perpetuation of man's life in this sphere
than as an active participant in generation. To presuppose
an instinct in woman to reproduce when it was imagined
that the very avenue of reproduction was closed to her is
typical of the reasoning that has been applied to sex
throughout the ages.

The existence of the maternal and to some extent the
paternal instinct cannot be questioned, for after the birth
of the young it automatically appears, at least among the
birds and the mammals, but this is as far removed from the
so-called reproductive instinct as mating is from the birth
of a child.

The reason why nature has made the passion to mate
so strong, the reason why sexual desire has been made the
instrument toward the physical union of the two sexes may
very possibly be because the pain and sacrifice incident to
the bearing and rearing of children would not in the opinion

The Ethical Aspects of Birth Control 103

of savage and undeveloped people be worth while, if pas-
sion could be satisfied independently. Instincts to be de-
serving of the name must be universal like hunger or thirst
and not appear merely sporadically, and even then subject
to the conscious will of the individual.

If the reproductive instinct really exists does it entail
the generation of one or twenty children? The man who
desires sexual union with a woman does not necessarily by
that same token wish through that specific act to have a
child by her. Indeed the contrary is often the case as
both the antagonists and proponents of birth control agree.
When, then, does the sexual instinct, the instinct to mate,
become the alleged instinct toward reproduction? Certainly
only when the conscious will of the individual specifically
recommends procreation which effectively differentiates the
sexual instinct from its supposed counterpart in repro-
duction.

Those who most vehemently contend that the sexual in-
stinct is the instinct toward reproduction and who inveigh
against contraceptive methods as being counter to a law
of nature belie their own assertions absolutely when they
are unwilling to rely upon it for the continuance of the
species. The instincts of hunger and thirst or of self-
preservation cause no such nervousness as to their con-
tinued existence that legal methods for their support have
to be instituted in order to insure their constant operation.
If there is an instinct toward reproduction why should they
think it necessary to make birth control a felony? Normal
people eat and drink, although they have to work for their
provender, and there is no law that they shall be sent to
the penitentiary if they fast even unreasonably. The
truth is that the sexual instinct is nothing more nor less
than an instinct to mate, and that it acts independently
of the desire for reproduction. The desire for a child is
not an instinct, for it is not by any means present in all
normal human beings even under conditions favorable to

104 The Laws of Sex

reproduction; moreover, it has no intrinsic connection with
the sexual act for some people desire no children at all
and others desire many children. The wish for a child is
analogous to the wish for a home, it is a possession which
is recognized by normal human beings as desirable and
when once it has come maternal and paternal love give it
an extraordinary but very real value.

There is no doubt but that children are an immense asset
to the efficiency and happiness of adult men and women;
they provide an incomparable stimulus to interest and
effort and they unite husband and wife in a common bond
of hope and responsibility. For the antagonists of birth
control to suppose that men and women would no longer
have children if the sex relation were artificially separated
from its power of generation is to imagine a degree of selfish-
ness and stupidity inherent in humanity that is fortunately
non-existent. It would doubtless be dangerous to put birth
control measures into the power of cattle or swine, but
it is another matter in the case of humanity. Children
are the crown of life, the greatest of all joys, barring none,
that fall to the lot of a man and woman who love one
another, and for a purient and narrow-minded group of
individuals to presume to dictate that the human race shall
breed as do the lower animals without respect to judgment,
economics, or free will is to take into their unworthy hands
the prerogative of the Almighty. Man has been given
judgment that he may use it, not that he may act contrary
to its dictates, and it is obviously the part of unreason
for a woman to continue to waste her energies on producing
miscarriages or on bearing more children than she can
rear in decency when measures are at hand which can save
such useless suffering. Disease itself involves a series of
natural consequences but that does not eliminate the value
or righteousness of preventive medicine.

In the past the need for manual laborers was so great
that abundant procreation on the part of the working

The Ethical Aspects of Birth Control 105

classes was more or less essential to the evolution of civiliza-
tion. The development of machinery has to some extent
eliminated this necessity but the exploiting classes still
recognize the relation of a large group of workers to their
material interests. Strikes, high wages, better working
conditions, are more apt to ensue if the number of workers
is proportionately small, hence it is to the advantage of
those who profit from the exploitation of labor to en-
courage reproduction on as large a scale as possible. A
diminution in the size of working men's families automati-
cally reduces the pressure which the capitalist can bring
to bear on this stratum of society; moreover, with fewer
offspring the workingman can afford to provide better
educational opportunities for the children he has with the
result that they are more able to throw off the yoke of an
oppressive economic system. The organized church repre-
senting a past age and responding to the dictates of its finan-
cial supporters tends to encourage procreation and lends
religious influence to the preservation of the status quo.
No consciously invidious purpose directs the action of the
church or the capitalist in this respect; classes, like indi-
viduals, often sense their fundamental interests without the
direct intervention of the rational mind. Acts which result
in the furtherance of their interests appear to them good
and such behavior is in consequence defined by them as moral.

The economic system which condemns a great part of
the intelligent female population to eternal celibacy and
which penalizes procreation unnecessarily, represents a
transitory arrangement of human affairs which can eventu-
ally be readjusted in consonance with the higher welfare of
humanity. Yet even under a more equable economic system
it is not to be supposed that men and women can reproduce
without restriction for the earth's surface is neither suffi-
ciently vast nor sufficiently equipped with natural resources
to permit of the complete utilization of human fertility.

But, the opponents of contraceptive measures will inter-

106 The Laws of Sex

vene, self-control is a more effective method than birth
control in regulating reproduction. This is the crux of
the whole matter; whether humanity is to turn to sexual
abstinence or contraceptive measures for bringing procrea-
tion within the bounds of economic possibility. So far as
the child is concerned it matters not whether its potential
parents remain unmarried, whether they practice birth con-
trol or abortion, whether they marry and then restrain
themselves from intercourse, or whether they use the method
of male continence recommended by the Oneida Colony
for the avoidance of conception.

In all of these events living issue is effectively prevented,
so the question resolves itself into the ethical values of birth
control in relation to sexual conduct. In connection with
abortion the violation of the life of another human being
is involved, for when conception has taken place the fertil-
ized ovum comes into possession of its own intrinsic life
and humanity has learned through long experience that
murder is an unwarrantable procedure. To destroy the
fertilized ovum is parallel to destroying the child immedi-
ately after birth for the two are but one and the same
thing in different stages of development. Any act which
tends to defame the sacredness of human life is clearly
unethical and abortion falls into this category. Only when
the life of the mother is at stake so that the state has to
choose between preserving the child or the mother is it
ethical for medicine to intervene and destroy the product
of conception. Moreover, the production of abortion im-
pairs to a greater or less degree the procreative power of
the mother which renders it as a method of birth control
comparatively disadvantageous.

In the prevention of conception, however, the violation
of human life is not involved for self-control and birth
control act equally to eliminate the possibility of fertiliza-
tion.

The ethical values involved in birth control can onlv be

The Ethical Aspects of Birth Control 107

comprehended by those who understand clearly the function
of sex in human life. Among the lower orders the primary
purpose of sex is obviously reproduction. The gratification
of the sexual instinct is a means to an end, and when the
sexual act is divorced from procreation neither the in-
dividual nor the species gains in proportionate benefits.
Among human beings, on the contrary, the individualization
of the sexual impulse has become so profound, that the use
of the sex act apart from love inevitably appears as un-
ethical conduct. The idea of breeding human beings to-
gether purely for the purpose of reproduction, as is done
in the case of cattle, is obnoxious to the highly evolution-
ized man or woman even though eugenic principles be strictly
regarded in the mating. When it was reported that this
procedure was being followed in Germany for the purpose
of increasing the population, civilization revolted at the
idea and recognized beyond question the intrinsic moral
degradation involved in this attitude toward the relation
between the sexes.

Reproduction alone cannot therefore be regarded among
human beings as offering a sufficient justification for sexual
relations. Sensuous pleasure, on the other hand, the mere
gratification of the sexual instinct, without regard to the
personality of the sex partner, is equally under the ban
of civilized idealism. Love as the human expression of the
principle of sexual selection is recognized as the essential
basis for sex relations between men and women. It is this
fact which determines the moral value of monogamous unions
and which proscribes polygamy or polyandry among highly
evolutionized human beings.

The importance of birth control in monogamous mar-
riage can hardly be overestimated. Sexual desire always
awakens at least in the male before full economic produc-
tivity has been accomplished. The young man cannot afford
to marry if by so doing he straightway becomes responsible
for the financial support of a wife and children. The pop-

108 The Laws of Sex

ular dictum that the man who desires to succeed in the
arts and sciences must abjure marriage has a very prac-
tical basis in experience. The man who is driven too hard
by the actual needs of his family is forced to forgo his
higher aspirations and to turn his attention instead to
commercial considerations. Thus love, which should be an
incentive to the creative impulses of the individual, becomes
a sort of millstone which drags him down to a debasing
materialism. It is this disillusioning experience of his fel-
lows which leads many young men to choose, and which
tends to give public sanction to, illicit relationships in
place of early marriage. A man can secure sexual gratifica-
tion at a comparatively small price through the patronage
of prostitutes or by temporarily keeping some woman, ancl
while the expense of maintaining a family in comfort is
financially out of the question, it is to be anticipated that
he will follow the example of other men and reduce his
morals to the proportion of his financial resources.

If on the other hand it were possible for him to marry
an economically independent woman and for them both
to look forward to having children when they could afford
to do so, the impulse to indulge in purely sensuous sex
affairs would be greatly diminished. Men ordinarily accept
loveless mating merely as the lesser of two evils and where
they are not forced to choose between sexual abstinence
and prostitution their better instincts can normally be de-
pended upon to prevent their degradation of the sexual
instinct.

It is doubtless this economic factor that has furthered
the development of prostitution under civilization for among
more primitive peoples the demand for illicit relationships
is to a great extent eliminated by early marriage. Past
experience has clearly proven that where birth control
methods are not understood the violation of wedlock fre-
quently follows. Married women whose health has been
ruined through the overproduction of children revolt against

The Ethical Aspects of Birth Control 109

sexual intercourse with the result that their husbands,
sometimes even with the wife's sanction, seek satisfaction
from outside sources.

As a factor in amalgamating the family unit voluntary
parenthood is of great significance. When the function
of sex is considered simply in its racial aspects and the
personal element is disregarded, estrangements between
husband and wife are apt to ensue. The expression of affec-
tional impulses conduces to a continuance of the emotion
and inhibition often leads to perversion. In case of the de-
nial of marital relations either the husband or wife is liable
to seek a more sympathetic sex partner elsewhere. Adulter-
ous thoughts result from the stimulation of sexual desire
unless it is satisfied and adulterous action frequently fol-
lows. The intimacy of family life predisposes to sexual
hunger and even though a man truly loves his wife he may
be led to marital infidelity if she consistently refuses to meet
his advances.

The complete satisfaction of sexual desire, the mutual
enjoyment of passion, is an indispensable element in suc-
cessful monogamous marriage. The mate is really not a
mate at all in the deepest sense if he or she fails to com-
prehend the natural yearning for physical union. The
emotion of love is embodied in physical passion and love
itself is repudiated when it is denied full expression.

Moreover, love itself is dependent upon the continual de-
velopment of its possessors, and when marriage acts to
stultify and inhibit the creative impulses of husband and
wife it defeats its primary objective.

There is absolutely no doubt but that birth control is
essential to the economic independence of women and upon
this factor equality in the sex relationship is ultimately
dependent. The woman who is self-supporting can with
no inconvenience continue at her occupation after marriage
unless she has children. Wedlock itself takes no more time
for a woman than for a man, but with reproduction she

110 The Lews of Sea:

finds herself temporarily set aside from her chosen occupa-
tion. In the professions, such as teaching, voluntary
parenthood would greatly facilitate the woman's retaining
her position for she could select a convenient time for pro-
creation when the birth of her child would not unnecessarily
prejudice her usefulness. Surely it would be better for
the race for the great group of teachers to marry and
produce even a few children of good inheritance, than for
them to remain as they are, condemned by economic con-
siderations to endure continual celibacy. Heretofore
women have been forced to choose between marriage and a
career proportionate to their natural endowments, but
under a regime of voluntary parenthood no such hard
choice would be their portion. Many of the most splendid
women the world has ever known have left no children to
carry their inheritance forward for marriage precluded
their activity in the world's work, and they felt that they
were not justified in making the sacrifice. Florence Nightin-
gale herself relates that she refused the happiness of mar-
riage because the call of her profession was so strong that
she dared not repudiate it.

For a woman to remain as an inspiring and congenial
companion to a man throughout life she needs other means
to development than are afforded today in the trivialities
associated with the ordering of the individual household.
Congenial work is essential to the development of intelli-
gence whether it be compassed in male or female form.
Moreover, motherhood itself as a determinant in the en-
vironment of the children should especially be endowed witli
a maximum of intellectual understanding.

While voluntary parenthood would increase the chances
for improvement in the race stock through the release of
desirable maternal inheritance, this is not the only way
in which it would operate beneficially upon the germ plasm
of future generations. With birth control measures freely
placed in possession of all classes of society it may fairly

The Ethical Aspects of Birth Control 111

be assumed that selfish and vicious people would avail them-
selves more proportionately of this method of avoiding re-
sponsibility than would altruistic and intelligent men and
women. The defective and degenerate seeking sexual
gratification without regard to the racial welfare or making
sex a means of barter would beyond doubt, especially in
the case of women, practice birth control consistently, if
the method were adapted to their mentality. Only the
more intelligent who desired to express themselves through
altruistic effort would take the burden of voluntary
parental responsibility upon their shoulders. At the pres-
ent time with knowledge of birth control restricted to the
upper classes, the reverse is the case, for those of low in-
telligence procreate proportionately more than those of
higher native endowment. The criminal, the feeble minded,
and the victims of constitutional disease or recurrent
mental derangement would doubtless almost without excep-
tion prefer to divorce sexual gratification from procreation
if with no discomfort to themselves they were permitted
to do so. If the X-ray, for example, were found to be a
practical method for inducing permanent sterility these
classes could within a reasonably short space of time be
relied upon to reduce their number greatly in every com-
munity. As a means of solving the colored problem also,
birth control would operate very effectively. Since it ap-
pears that in the near future a reduction of the birth rate
will be an economic necessity, the opportunity which the
institution of voluntary parenthood affords for improving
and purifying the race stock should clearly without delay
be utilized. Before birth control can, however, be turned
to this practical end fundamental improvements in contra-
ceptive methods must be devised, for the measures at present
available demand intelligence and a certain amount of re-
straint in their use and are therefore ineffective among
the lowest classes.

To advocate sexual abstinence as a means of reducing

112 The Laws of Sea:

the birth rate to the range of economic feasibility, and to
retard teaching in contraceptive measures, is to presuppose
a degeneration of the race stock, for it would leave pro-
creation in the power of those who were merely the slaves
of their animal passions, and would diminish the number of
children chiefly among such people as were of uncommon
mental and moral fibre.

Those who oppose the substitution of contraceptive
measures for sexual abstinence in marriage clearly do not
consider love to be a sufficient basis for sex relationships.
Even though a man and a woman truly love one another
and are united in monogamous marriage the antagonists
of birth control would deny them sexual union, except for
the direct purpose of reproduction. In other words, the
child and not love is regarded by them as the essential
justification of the sexual act.

An examination of the institution of prostitution indi-
cates that they cannot support their position on moral
grounds.

The intrinsic degradation of prostitution is associated
with two definite ethical concepts in the mind of man ;
first, the purpose of sex is to enrich the racial life, and
second, sex is not a commodity that can rightfully be
used for any kind of barter.

The man who uses a prostitute is condemned because he
uses his power of sex for a purely selfish and unproductive
purpose. Sex represents the racial life and is 'abused when
it is turned solely to the transitory enjoyment of the in-
dividual. It is a means to expression, to creation and is
transformed to a debasing and anti-social factor when it
fails to express love and to stimulate creative effort.

The prostitute who sells her body, or indeed the woman
who marries for economic considerations, is judged, not on
the ground that she has denied the purpose of sex in re-
production, but because humanity recognizes that love is

The Ethical Aspects of Birth Control 113

a free gift between human beings and that sex relations are
only justifiable where love exists.

Money, social station, ambition of any sort, as an ulterior
basis for sex relations is recognized from the outset as an
unworthy motive, for love cannot be bought and sold even
though its counterfeit is on sale at any street corner.

The antagonists of birth control who demand reproduc-
tion as the sole justification for sex relationships would
place sex permanently on a basis of prostitution, making
the child the price for which men and women might pur-
chase for themselves the pleasures of sexual companionship.
The unreality of their position is clearly seen in the case
of the man and the woman who are by nature sterile but
whose lives are enriched and made socially more productive
for the race through the happiness and stimulus resulting
from their congenial marriage.

Sex among human beings is a creative power but the
children of love appear not in the flesh alone, but in art,
music, science and altruistic effort.

Beautiful as they are, mortal children fail to embody
the immortality of the spirit, and true sexual union is
only achieved when the spiritual as well as the physical
natures unite in the expression of God's will in the universe.

The opponents of birth control would rob Love of his
wings and reduce him to a carnal level; but Eros, though
a blind deity, will escape their hands and lead humanity on
to its complete creative accomplishment.

Sex is the language of love and when used to express
man's supreme emotion it speaks a fundamental truth and
needs no ulterior justification.

CHAPTEE VI

THE PRESENT STATUTES

During the past three years, as a direct result of the Gov-
ernment's venereal disease campaign, a considerable amount
of legislation designed to restrict the commercialized aspects
of prostitution has been placed upon the statute books.1
Previously to 1917, forty-two states had enacted laws
against setting up or maintaining houses of prostitution.
Forty-four states had made compulsory prostitution a crime,
forty-five states had forbidden pandering, and 36 pimp-
ing and living off the earnings of a prostitute. The Red
Light Injunction and Abatement law had been passed by
twenty-seven states prior to 1917, and twelve additional
states have since that time included this law among their
statutes. In one stale, New Jersey, the Injunction and
Abatement law has been declared unconstitutional. The
legislation that has been enacted since 1917 is especially
interesting in that it tends to hold both parties to prosti-
tution equally guilty before the law. Prior to 1919 there
was no statutory definition of prostitution except in the
Indiana Code. Prostitution was not an offense at com-
mon law, but was regarded merely as a spiritual trans-
gression not punishable in the secular courts. In twenty*
eight states, before 1917, prostitutes had been classed as
vagrants or disorderly persons, and were held either under
this or under the discriminatory solicitation laws. The
patronage of prostitutes was nowhere regarded as an of-
fense against the law, except in Indiana, where the law

* George E. Worthington. Developments in Social Hygiene Legislation
from 1917 to Sept. 1, 1920.

114

The Present Statutes 115

provided that "a male who frequents or visits a house or
houses of ill fame or assignation, except as a physician,
or associates with women known or reputed as prostitutes,
shall be fined $10 to $100, and imprisoned in the county jail
from ten to sixty days."

In New York, South Dakota and Wisconsin, somewhat
similar legislation had been passed, but in 1917 the Supreme
Court of South Dakota held the law to be unconstitutional
as a denial of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Such an ordinance, the Court declared, "would prevent per-
sonal effort on the part of male citizens to uplift and amelio-
rate the condition of fallen women."

With the inception of the Government's campaign for
the protection of the soldiers during the war, and doubt-
less as a by-product of the increasing emancipation of
women, the responsibility of the male in the commerce of
prostitution came to be recognized.

Form Law No. 1, which was prepared by the law enforce-
ment division of the Commission on Training Camp Activi-
ties, and which has in large part been enacted into law
in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Hamp-
shire, North Dakota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island
and Wisconsin, provides: "Sec. 2. That the term 'pros-
titution' shall be construed to include the giving or receiv-
ing of the body for sexual intercourse for hire, and shall
also be construed to include the giving or receiving of the
body for indiscriminate sexual intercourse without hire."

While this law would appear to mark a distinct gain by
placing the two parties to prostitution upon an equal basis,
in reality it is frequently either a dead letter or is directed
only against the woman, the man being ordinarily held
merely as the state's witness.2

*In Maryland the courts have repeatedly held that when a man and
a woman are both held on a charge of immorality neither can be forced
to testify against the other, as such testimony would be self-incrim-
inatory. Under the Constitution no person can be forced to testify
against himself.

116 The Laws of Sex

In Iowa and Illinois, before Form Law No. 1 was drawn
up, the Court had already ruled that a man could not be
guilty of prostitution, only females coming within the defi-
nition.

Form Law No. 1 also provides penalization for the inter-
mediaries in prostitution, the taxi driver, the pimp, the
madam, etc.

In twenty-six states solicitation for prostitution on the
part of women is an offense against the law, and in thirteen
states both men and women are equally liable.

In most of the states the laws for the repression of prosti-
tution are still more or less haphazard and incomplete, and
need rational revision in order to be adapted in practice to
their objective.

On the constructive side the situation is even more difficult
and discouraging. In 1873, at the instigation of Anthony
Comstock, the Federal Obscenity Act was passed, providing
a penalty of not more than five years in prison or $5,000
fine, or both, for using the United States mails to distribute
information or "articles" for preventing conception. All
but five states now have similar obscenity statutes. In
eighteen states the law makes it a crime to give informa-
tion in any way whatever, written or verbally, with regard
to birth control. In New York and in many of the other
states the penalty is imprisonment from ten days to one
year or a fine of from $50 to $1,000, or both, for each
offense. While public opinion in no wise supports these
statutes, it is difficult to secure their repeal, for politicians
hesitate to involve themselves in this sort of legislation.

A review of the laws in the various states governing the
sex relation discloses with startling clarity the fact that
in America no firm consensus of opinion exists on the stat-
ute books with regard to the standardization of sexual con-
duct. Acts which in one state are classified as felonies,
in another state may not be penalized at all, and offenses
which in some states involve hanging as a penalty, in

The Present Statutes 117

other states are not even recognized as a violation of the
law. The divergence in the degree of punishment meted
out for sexual crime is so great as to constitute practical
anarchy, for punishment depends not upon the character
of the act committed, but upon the place in which the of-
fender happens to reside.

For example, in Arkansas, Delaware, Louisiana, Nevada
and Tennessee, there is no adequate law against adultery,
whereas in California the same offense may be penalised by
imprisonment for five years in the penitentiary. In Arizona
the adulterer may upon conviction be imprisoned for three
years, but in the state next door no penalty whatsoever
attaches to the violation of wedlock.

The unreasonableness of this lack of conformity in the
statutes is well evidenced in the town of Cardiff, which lies
partly in Maryland and partly in Pennsylvania. If a per-
son commits adultery on one side of the street he may
be punished only by a maximum fine of $10, whereas if
he commits the same act with the same person on the other
side of the same highway he may be fined $500 or be ina-
prisoned for one year in jail.

An interesting commentary on the public attitude toward
adultery is found in the Arizona code, which specifically
provides that no prosecution can be commenced except on
the complaint of the husband or wife. In this and in sev-
eral other states the Government has apparently no concern
in the protection of the basic institution of matrimony.

The situation is even more palpably irrational with re-
gard to the offense of fornication. In twelve states of
the Union no law whatsoever against fornication appears
upon the statute books. In the other thirty-six the pen-
alty varies from a fine of $500 and imprisonment for
one year in jail to the trifling fine of not more than $10.

In Pennsylvania the law provides that "a single woman
having a child born of her body, the same shall be sufficient
to convict such single woman of fornication." Thus mother-

118 The Laws of Sex

hood itself is brought under the ban of the law and may
be penalized by a fine of $100.

With regard to the age of consent the statutes are still
more anomalous, for heavy penalties are involved in the
offense of rape, and yet the character of this crime shows
a marked regional difference. In Georgia, for example,
the age of consent is fourteen years, whereas in Tennessee
"unlawful intercourse with a female child between the ages
of twelve and twenty-one constitutes a felony, if the female
is not a bawd, lewd or kept female." In South Carolina
the age of consent is fourteen years, in Rhode Island fifteen
years, in the District of Columbia sixteen years, and in most
of the Western states eighteen years. In Alaska and Hawaii
girls are protected only until they are twelve years old,
whereas in Colorado and Washington both boys and girls
are protected until their eighteenth year.

It is not to be supposed that these divergent statutes are
based upon any real consensus of opinion existent in the
various states; they represent rather the archaic remains
of a forgotten era, when mankind had not yet learned the
importance of sexual conduct to the racial life. The scat-
tered instances where the statutes have been revised indi-
cate the first awakenings of the racial conscience, and show
in what direction modern thought tends.

The laws regarding marriage and divorce, and ultimately
fixing the boundaries of recognized sex relationships are
somewhat more uniform, but still differ so widely from state
to state that it is impossible to believe that they are the
result of rational foresight.

Marriage licenses are required in all of the states and
territories except Alaska. In California and New York
both of the applicants are required to appear in person
and to be examined under oath or to submit affidavits.
Marriages between whites and persons of negro descent are
prohibited and punishable in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas,

TKe Present Statutes

California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho,
Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi,
Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina,
North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Vir-
ginia. Marriages between whites and Indians are void in
Arizona, North Carolina, Oregon and South Carolina, and
between whites and Chinese in Arizona, California, Missis-
sippi, Oregon and Utah. The marriage of first cousins
is forbidden in most of the states, as is also the marriage
of an epileptic or imbecile. The marriage of step-relatives
is outlawed in all but nineteen states of the Union.

In thirteen states, Alabama, Michigan, New York, Penn-
sylvania, Vermont, Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, North
Dakota, New Jersey, Oregon, Oklahoma and Washington,
the venereal diseases are specifically mentioned as a bar
to marriage. In North Dakota, Oregon and Washington
the restriction applies only to males, and in Alabama and
Wisconsin females are exempted from examination; in the
others both sexes are included. In Maine it is a misde-
meanor for persons suffering with syphilis to marry. A
physician's certificate is required only in Alabama, North
Dakota, Oregon and Wisconsin. In Indiana the marriage
of a person suffering from any transmissible disease is for-
bidden, but a physician's certificate is not requisite. Utah
provides that marriages between persons afflicted with vene-
real diseases shall be void.2

The effect of these "eugenic" or "sanitary" marriage
laws is conceded to be largely moral and educational.3

The age at which marriage is valid varies greatly in
the different states, especially as it affects females. The
age at which males may marry without their parents' con-

1 Social Hygiene Legislation Manual, 1921, A. S. H. A.
•Fred S. Hall and Elizabeth W. Brooke. American Marriage Law
in Their Social Aspects.

120 The Laws of Sex

sent is twenty-one in every state except Idaho, Illinois,
Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, North
Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia, where it is
eighteen years.

With the parents' consent males may marry at fourteen
years in Kentucky, Louisiana, New Hampshire and Virginia ;
at sixteen years in Iowa, Texas and Utah; at seventeen
years in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Kansas ; at eigh-
teen years in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois,
Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada,
New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Okla-
homa, Oregon, Porto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota,
Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming. There is no definite
provision in Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Colum-
bia, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York,
Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas and Vermont.

The age at which females may marry without the parents'
consent is sixteen years in Maryland and New Hampshire;
twenty-one years in Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Pennsyl-
vania, Porto Rico, Rhode Island, Virginia, West Virginia
and Wyoming; and eighteen years in all of the other states.

With the parents' consent females may marry at twelve
years in Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi and
Virginia; at thirteen years in New Hampshire; at fourteen
years in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, North
Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas and Utah ;
at fifteen years in California, Hawaii, Kansas, Minnesota,
Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Okla-
homa, South Dakota and Wisconsin; at sixteen years in
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada,
Ohio, Oregon, Porto Rico and West Virginia; at eighteen
years in Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, New York, Tennessee
and Vermont.

The lowest age at which an unmarried female can make
a valid contract except marriage is eighteen years in Arkan-

The Present Statutes 121

sas, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa,
Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma,
Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont and Washington; and
twenty-one years in all of the other states. Thus it is
seen that marriage, which is without doubt the most im-
portant relationship into which a girl can enter, becomes
valid from the age of twelve years and upward, whereas
all other contractual rights are invalid until she reaches at
least the age of eighteen years.

In all of the states of the Union, with one exception, adul-
tery is a primary cause for the dissolution of marriage.
No person can obtain a divorce on any grounds in South
Carolina. The term of residence required by the various
states for applicants for divorce varies from six months
in Nevada to three to five years in Massachusetts. The causes
for absolute divorce differ greatly, ranging from desertion
for one year to extreme cruelty, adultery or insanity.

In most states marriage may be annuled for want of
age, former existing marriage, insanity, physical incapac-
ity, force or fraud inducing marriage, or premarital un-
chastity on the part of the woman. Collusion on the part
of the applicants usually renders the action for divorce
null and void.

In general, divorce is so difficult and expensive to secure,
unless adultery can be readily established, that it is practi-
cally beyond the reach of the average man and woman of
the poorer classes. The usual grounds on which divorce
is granted are desertion, cruelty or non-support. ,

In order to enable the reader to see for himself the
chaotic condition of the statutes governing the sex rela-
tionship the laws in the various states regarding divorce,
adultery, fornication and the age of consent, are herewith
presented in tabular form. The laws include those passed
by the regular sessions of 1920 unless otherwise stated.

122 Tlie Laws of Sex

CAUSES FOR ABSOLUTE DIVORCE

In All of the States Except South Carolina Adultery Is a
Primary Cause for Divorce

Alabama — residence required, one to three yean

Adultery, abandonment two years, crime against nature,
habitual drunkenness, violence, pregnancy of wife by other
than husband at marriage, physical incapacity, imprison-
ment for two years for felony, confinement in insane asylum
for twenty years, if husband becomes addicted to cocaine,
morphine or similar drugs. New ground for divorce: To
the wife, when the wife without support from the husband
has lived separate and apart from the bed and board of the
husband for five years next preceding the filing of the
bill, and she has actually resided in this state during all
of said period. Acts 1915, held to authorize granting of
divorce to wife only upon lapse of five years from and after
date of its enactment.

Alaska — residence required, two years
Adultery, felony, physical incapacity, desertion two
years, cruelty, habitual drunkenness.

Arizona — residence required, one year
Adultery, felony, physical incapacity, desertion one year,
excesses, cruelty, neglect to provide one year, pregnancy
of wife by other than husband at marriage, conviction of
felony prior to marriage unknown to other party, habitual
drunkenness.

Arkansas — residence required, one year
Adultery, desertion one year, felony, habitual drunken-
ness one year, cruelty, former marriage existing, physical
incapacity.

California — residence required, one year
Adultery, cruelty, desertion one year, neglect one year,
habitual drunkenness one year, felony.

The Present Statutes 123

Colorado — residence required, one year

Adultery, desertion one year, physical incapacity, cruelty,
failure to provide one year, habitual drunkenness or drug
fiend one year, felony, former marriage existing.

Connecticut — residence required, three years

Adultery, fraudulent contract, wilful desertion three
years, with total neglect of duty, habitual drunkenness,
cruelty, imprisonment for life, infamous crime involving
violation of conjugal duty and punishable by imprisonment
in state prison, seven years' absence without being heard
from.

Delaware — residence required, one year

Adultery, desertion two years, habitual drunkenness for
two years, cruelty, bigamy, felony followed by a continuous
imprisonment for at least two years — and at the discretion
of the Court, fraud, want of age, neglect to provide three
years. "When at the time the cause of action arose, either
party was a bona fide resident of the state, and has con-
tinued so to be down to the time of the commencement of
the action; except that no action for absolute divorce
shall be commenced for any cause other than adultery, or
bigamy, unless one of the parties has been for the two
years next preceding the commencement of the action, a
bona fide resident of the state."

District of Columbia — residence required, three years

Adultery, marriages may be annulled for former exist-
ing marriages, lunacy, fraud, coercion, physical incapacity
and want of age at time of marriage.

Florida — residence required, two years

Adultery, cruelty, violent temper, habitual drunkenness,
physical incapacity, desertion one year, former marriage
existing, relationship within prohibited degrees.

124 The Laws of Sex

Georgia — residence required, one ytar
Adultery, mental and physical incapacity, desertion three
years, felony, cruelty, force, duress or fraud in obtaining
marriage, pregnancy of wife by other than husband at mar-
riage, relationship within prohibited degrees.

Hawaii — residence required, two years
Adultery, desertion one year, felony, leper, cruelty, hab-
itual drunkenness.

Idaho — residence required, six months
Adultery, cruelty, desertion one year, neglect one year,
habitual drunkenness one year, felony, insanity.

Illinois — residence required, one year
Adultery, desertion two years, habitual drunkenness two
years, former existing marriage, cruelty, felony, physical
incapacity, attempt on life of other party; divorced party
cannot marry for one year.

Indiana — residence required, two years
Adultery, abandonment two years, cruelty, habitual
drunkenness, failure to provide two years, felony, physical
incapacity.

Iowa — residence required, one year

Adultery, desertion two years, felony, habitual drunken-
ness, cruelty, pregnancy of wife by other than husband
at marriage, unless husband has illegitimate child or chil-
dren living, of which wife did not know at time of mar-
riage. The marriage may be annulled for the following
causes existing at the time of the marriage : insanity, physi-
cal incapacity, former existing marriage.

Kansas — residence required, one year
Adultery, abandonment one year, cruelty, fraud, habit-
ual drunkenness, gross neglect of duty, felony, physical
incapacity, pregnancy of wife by other than husband at
marriage, former existing marriage.

The Present Statutes 125

Kentucky — residence required, one year
Adultery, separation five years, desertion one year, fel-
ony, physical incapacity, loathsome disease, habitual drunk-
enness one year, cruelty, force, fraud or duress in obtain-
ing marriage, joining religious sect believing marriage un-
lawful, pregnancy of wife by other than husband at mar-
riage or subsequent unchaste behavior, ungovernable temper.

Louisia/na — residence required, one year
Adultery, felony, habitual drunkenness, excesses, cruelty,
public defamation of other party, abandonment, attempt
on life of other party, fugitive from justice.

Maine — residence required, one year

Adultery, cruelty, desertion three years, physical inca-
pacity, habits of intoxication by liquors, opium or other
drugs, neglect to provide, insanity under certain limita-
tions.

Maryland — residence required, two years
Adultery, abandonment three years, unchastity of wife
before marriage, physical incapacity, any cause which ren-
ders the marriage null and void ab initio, exceedingly vi-
cious conduct.

Massachusetts — residence required, three to five years
Adultery, cruelty, desertion three years, habits of intoxi-
cation by liquors, opium or other drugs, neglect to pro-
vide, physical incapacity, imprisonment for felony, uniting
for three years with religious sect believing marriage un-
lawful.

Michigan — residence required, one year
Adultery, felony, desertion two years, habitual drunken-
ness, physical incapacity, and in the discretion of the Court
for cruelty or neglect to provide.

Minnesota — residence required, one year
Adultery, desertion one year, habitual drunkenness one
year, cruelty, physical incapacity, imprisonment for felony.

126 The Laws of Sex

Mississippi — residence required, one year
Adultery, felony, desertion two years, consanguinity,
physical incapacity, habitual drunkenness by liquor, opium
or other drugs, cruelty, insanity at time of marriage, former
existing marriage, pregnancy of wife by other than hus-
band at marriage.

Missouri — residence required, one year
Adultery, felony, absence one year, habitual drunkenness
one year, cruelty, indignities, vagrancy, former existing
marriage, physical incapacity, conviction of felony prior
to marriage unknown to other party, wife pregnant by
other than husband at marriage.

Montana — residence required, one year
Adultery, cruelty, desertion, neglect one year, habitual
drunkenness one year, felony, innocent party may not re-
marry within two years and guilty party within three years
of the divorce.

Nebraska — residence required, one year
Adultery, abandonment two years, habitual drunkenness,
physical incapacity, felony, failure to support two years,
cruelty, imprisonment for more than three years.

Nevada — residence required, six months
Adultery, desertion one year, felony, habitual drunken-
ness, physical incapacity, cruelty, neglect to provide one
year.

New Hampshire — residence required, one year
Adultery, cruelty, felony, physical incapacity, absence
three years, habitual drunkenness three years, failure to
provide three years, treatment endangering health or rea-
son, union with sect regarding marriage unlawful, wife
separate without the state ten years, not claiming marital
rights, husband absent from United States three years, in-
tending to become citizen of another country without making
any provision for wife's support.

The Present Statutes 127

New Jersey — residence required, two years
Adultery, desertion two years, cruelty. No divorce may
be obtained on grounds arising in another state unless they
constituted ground for divorce in the state where they arose.
The marriage may be annulled for the following causes ex-
isting at the time of the marriage: Want of legal age,
former existing marriage, consanguinity, physical incapac-
ity, idiocy. In other cases, an action may be begun if
the overt act was committed here.

New Mexico — residence required, one year
Adultery, abandonment, cruelty, neglect to provide, hab-
itual drunkenness, felony, physical incapacity, pregnancy
of wife by other than husband at marriage.

New York — residence required, two years
Adultery only. The marriage may be annulled for such
causes as rendered the relationship void at its inception.

North Carolina — residence required, two years
Adultery, pregnancy of wife by other than husband at
marriage, physical incapacity, husband and wife living
apart for ten years and having no issue.

North Dakota — residence required, one year
Adultery, cruelty, desertion one year, neglect one year,
habitual drunkenness one year, felony. The marriage may
be annulled for the following causes existing at the time
of the marriage : Former existing marriage, insanity, physi-
cal incapacity, force or fraud inducing the marriage, or
want of age.

Ohio — residence required, one year

That either party had a husband or wife living at the
time of the marriage from which the divorce is sought, wil-
ful absence of either party from the other for three years,
adultery, impotency, extreme cruelty, fraudulent contracty
any gross neglect of duty, habitual drunkenness for three

128 The Laics of Sex

years, the imprisonment of either party in a penitentiary
under sentence thereto. The petition for divorce under this
clause must be filed during the imprisonment of the adverse
party. The procurement of a divorce without this state,
by a husband or wife, by virtue of which the party who
procured it is released from the obligations of the mar-
riage, while they remain binding upon the other party.
Adultery.

Oklahoma — residence required, one year
Adultery, abandonment one year, cruelty, fraud, habitual
drunkenness, felony, gross neglect of duty, physical inca-
pacity, former existing marriage, pregnancy of wife by
other than husband at marriage.

Oregon — residence required, one year
Adultery, felony, habitual drunkenness one year, physi-
cal incapacity, desertion one year, cruelty or personal in-
dignities rendering life burdensome.

Pennsylvania — residence required, one year
Adultery, former existing marriage, desertion two years,
personal abuse or conduct rendering life burdensome, fel-
ony, fraud, relationship within prohibited degrees, physical
incapacity.

Porto Rico — residence required, one year
Adultery, felony, habitual drunkenness, abandonment one
year.

Rhode Island — residence required, two years
Adultery, cruelty, desertion five years, habitual drunken-
ness, excessive use of morphine, opium or chloral, neglect to
provide one year, gross misbehavior, living separate ten
years, physical incapacity, cruel treatment of husband by
wife, making it unsafe for him to live with her. Either
party civilly dead for crime or prolonged absence. The
marriage may be annulled for causes rendering the rela-
tionship originally void or voidable.

The Present Statutes 129

South Carolina
No divorces granted.

South Dakota — residence required, one year
Adultery, cruelty, desertion one year, neglect one year,
habitual drunkenness one year, felony. The marriage may
be annulled for the following causes existing at the time
of the marriage : Want of age, former existing marriage, in-
sanity, physical incapacity, force or fraud inducing mar-
riage.

Tennessee — residence required, two years
Adultery, former existing marriage, desertion two years,
felony, physical incapacity, attempt on life of other party,
refusal of wife to live with husband in the state and absent-
ing herself two years, pregnancy of wife by other than
husband at marriage; at the discretion of the Court for
cruelty, indignities, abandonment or neglect to provide, hab-
itual drunkenness.

Texas — residence required, one year

Adultery, abandonment three years, physical incapacity,
cruelty, excess or outrages rendering life together insup-
portable, felony.

Utah — residence required, one year

Adultery, desertion one year, physical incapacity, hab-
itual drunkenness, felony, cruelty, permanent insanity, ve-
nereal disease.

Vermont — residence required, two years
Adultery, imprisonment three years, intolerable severity,
desertion three years, neglect to provide, absence seven
years without being heard from.

Virginia — residence required, one year
Adultery, insanity at marriage, felony, desertion three
years, fugitive from justice two years, pregnancy of wife
by other than husband at marriage, wife a prostitute, or

130 The Laws of Sex

either party convicted of felony before marriage unknown
to other, physical incapacity.

Washington — residence required, one year
Adultery, abandonment one year, fraud, habitual drunk-
enness, refusal to provide, felony, physical incapacity, in-
curable insanity, cruelty or indignities rendering life bur-
densome, other cause deemed sufficient by the Court.

West Virginia — residence required, one year

Adultery, desertion three years, felony, physical inca-
pacity, pregnancy of wife by other than husband at mar-
riage, husband a licentious character or wife a prostitute
unknown to other party, either party convicted of felony
before marriage unknown to other. The marriage may be
annulled for the following causes existing at the time of
the marriage: Former existing marriage, consanguinity,
insanity, physical incapacity, miscegenation, want of age.

Wisconsin — residence required, two years

Adultery, felony (imprisonment three years), desertion
one year, cruelty, physical incapacity, habitual drunken-
ness one year, separation five years. In the discretion of
the Court for cruelty or neglect to provide. The mar-
riage may be annulled for the following causes existing
at the time of the marriage: Want of age or understand-
ing, consanguinity, force or fraud inducing marriage.

Wyoming — residence required, one year

Adultery, felony, desertion one year, habitual drunken-
ness, cruelty, neglect to provide one year, husband a va-
grant, physical incapacity, indignities rendering condition
intolerable, pregnancy of wife by other than husband at
marriage, either party convicted of felony before marriage
unknown to other. The marriage may be annulled for the
following causes existing at the time of the marriage: Want
of age, force or fraud.

The Present Statutes 181

ADULTERY

Alabama
Sec. 6221, Crim Code 1907:

If anj man and woman live together in adultery or forni-
cation, each of them must on first conviction be fined not
less than $100, and may also be imprisoned in county jail,
or sentenced to hard labor for not more than six months ;
on second conviction with the same person, fine not less than
$300, and may also be imprisoned in county jail or sen-
tenced to hard labor for not more than twelve months;
and on third conviction or any subsequent convictions with
same person, must be imprisoned in penitentiary for two
years.

Adultery is illicit connection where either is married, and
includes fornication. Hinton's Case; 6 Alabama, 864.

If neither married, it is fornication; if one married it
is fornication for one and adultery for other. Buchanan's
Case; 55 Alabama, 154.

One act of illicit intercourse, and an agreement or con-
sent that it will be repeated if opportunity offers, is suf-
ficient. Bodiford's Case; 86 Alabama, 67.

Arizona
Sec. 240, Penal Code 1913 (R. S.):

Every person who commits adultery shall be imprisoned
in the state prison not more than three years, and when
the crime is committed between parties only one of whom
is married, both shall be punished. No prosecution can
be commenced except on complaint of husband or wife.
Sec. 241 :

Every person who lives in a state of open and notorious
cohabitation or adultery is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Arkansas
Sec. 1933:

"Illegal cohabitation." K. & C. Stats., 1916.

132 The Laws of Sex

California
Sec. 269-a, Penal Code 1915:

Every person who lives in a state of cohabitation and
adultery is guilty of a misdemeanor and punishable by a
fine not exceeding $1,000, or by imprisonment in county
jail not exceeding one year, or both. "Voluntary sexual
intercourse of married person with person other than of-
fender's husband or wife — in re Cooper; 162 Calif., 81—
unmarried person not guilty." S. C.

Sec. 269-b:

If two persons, each being married to another, live to-
gether in a state of cohabitation and adultery, each is
guilty of a felony and punishable by imprisonment in state
prison not exceeding five years.

Colorado
Sec. 1896 R. S.— 1912 (Mills):

Any man and woman who shall live together in an open
state of adultery or fornication or adultery and fornication
shall on conviction be fined any sum not exceeding $200
each, or imprisoned in county jail not exceeding six months
— for second offense double punishment ; third offense, treble,
and thus increasing punishment for each succeeding offense.

Connecticut

Every man and every married woman who shall commit
adultery with each other shall be imprisoned in penitentiary
not more than five years.
Chap. 264, Laws 1917.

Delaware
Sec. 874, Code 1919:

District of Columbia

Whoever commits adultery in Dist. shall, on convic-
tion, be punished by fine not exceeding $500, or by impris-

The Present Statutes 188

onment not exceeding one year, or both; when act between
married woman and unmarried man, both parties guilty;
when between married man and unmarried woman, man only,
guilty.

If an unmarried man or woman commit fornication, each
of them shall be punished by imprisonment not exceeding
six months or by a fine not exceeding $100.

Florida
Sec. 3518, R. S. 1914:

Whoever lives in open state of adultery shall be punished
by imprisonment in penitentiary not exceeding two years,
or county jail not exceeding one year, or by fine not
exceeding $500. Where either party is married, both are
guilty of the offense.

Georgia

Sec. 872, Park's Code 1914:

Any man and woman who shall live together in a state
of adultery or fornication, or of adultery and fornication,
or who shall otherwise commit adultery or fornication, shall
be severely indicted, and shall be severely punished as for
a misdemeanor. Suspension if they marry.

"If man and woman were in bed together, that would be
circumstance that would authorize jury to convict." 7
App. 600.

"If both parties who participated in illicit intercourse
were married, each is guilty of adultery ; if both parties are
single, each is guilty of fornication ; if one is married, and
the other single, each is guilty of adultery and fornica-
tion." 100 Ga. 360.

Hawaii
Sec. 4144, R. S. 1915:

Sexual intercourse between a man married or unmarried,
and a married woman not his wife, is adultery by each;
and between a married man and an unmarried woman, is
adultery by each. Penalty:

134 The Laws of Sex

Mem — fine not exceeing $100 nor less than $30, or by
imprisonment at hard labor not less than three months nor
more than twelve months, or both.

Woman — fine not exceeding $30 nor less than $10, or
imprisonment at hard labor not less than two months nor
more than four months.

Idaho
Sec. 6807, Code 1908:

A married man who has sexual intercourse with a woman
not his wife, an unmarried man who has sexual intercourse
with a married woman, a married woman who has sexual
intercourse with a man not her husband, and an unmarried
woman who has sexual intercourse with a married man,
guilty of adultery, penalty: — Fine not less than $100 or
by imprisonment in county jail not less than three months,
or by imprisonment in penitentiary not exceeding three
years or in county jail not exceeding one year, or by fine
not exceeding $1,000.

Illinois
Sec. 3493, R. S. 1913:

If any man and woman shall live together in an open
state of adultery or fornication, or adultery and fornica-
tion, they shall be fined not exceeding $500, or imprisoned
in county jail not exceeding one year. Second offense,
double former; third offense, treble, and thus increasing
punishment for each succeeding offense; suspended on
marriage. "Adultery the voluntary sexual intercourse of
a married person with a person other than offender's hus-
band or wife, whether such persons be married or single."
Miner v. People; 58 111. 59. Offense complete if parties
live together but single day, if there is intention to con-
tinue. Lyman v. People, 198 111. 544.

Indiana
Sec. 2353, Burns R. S., 1914:

Whoever cohabits with another in a state of adultery

The Present Statutes 135

or fornication shall be fined not exceeding $500 or impris-
oned in county jail not exceeding six monlhs, or both.
"Adultery consists in man having unlawful carnal inter-
course with a married woman." Hood v. State, 56 Indiana
263. Cohabitation by man with unmarried woman is fornica-
tion. S. C.

"To cohabit in state of adultery or fornication means
a living together of the parties." Jackson v. State, 116
Ind. 464.

Iowa
Sec. 4932, Code 1897:

Every person who commits adultery shall be imprisoned
in the penitentiary not more than three years or fined not
exceeding $300 and imprisoned in county jail not exceed-
ing one year, and when crime is committed between parties
only one of whom is married, both shall be punished. "Sex-
ual connection between man and woman, one of whom is
married to third person." State vs. Hasty, 121 Iowa,
507.

Kansas
Sec. 3615, R.S. Adultery:

Every person who shall be guilty of adultery, and every
man and woman (one or both of whom are married and not
to each other) who shall lewdly and lasciviously abide and
cohabit with each other, and every person unmarried or
married, who shall be guilty of open gross lewdness, or
lascivious behavior or of any open and notorious act of
public indecency, grossly scandalous, shall on conviction
be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor and punished by
imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding six months or
by a fine not exceeding $500 or both.

"Sexual intercourse by married man with any woman is
adultery." Bachford v. Wells, 78 K. 295 ; "Adultery can-
not be committed by an unmarried person." State v. Chafin,
80 K. 653.

136 The Laws of Sex

Kentucky (To January 1919.)
Sec. 1320, Carrol S. 1915 :

Every person who shall commit fornication or adultery
shall for every offense be fined not less than $20 and not
more than $50.

Louisiana (To and including 1918.)
No Law.

Maine
Sec. 1481—1 R.S. 1916:

Whoever commits adultery shall be punished by imprison-
ment for not more than five years, or by fine not exceeding
$1,000; when only one of the parties is married, or when
they have been legally divorced from the bonds of matri-
mony, and afterwards cohabit, each shall be deemed guilty
of adultery.

Maryland
Bagby Code 1914; Vol. 3, p. 310, Sec. 5:

Any person who shall commit adultery shall upon con-
viction thereof be fined $10.

Massachusetts
Sec. 10, p. 1786, R.S. 1902:

A married man who has sexual intercourse with a woman
not his wife, an unmarried man who has sexual intercourse
with a married woman, and a married woman who has sexual
intercourse with a man not her husband shall be guilty of
adultery and shall be punished by imprisonment in the
state prison for not more than three years or in the jail
for not more than two years, or by a fine of not more than
$500.

Michigan
Comp. Laws 1915 — Par. 15462, Sec. 1:

Every person who shall commit adultery shall be pun-
ished by imprisonment in the state prison not more than
three years or by fine not exceeding $500, or imprisonment

The Present Statutes 137

in county jail not more than one year, and when crime is
committed between a married woman and a man who is
unmarried, the man shall be deemed guilty of adultery and
liable to same punishment.

Sec. 3 :

No prosecution commenced except on complaint of hus-
band or wife, or after one year.

Minnesota
Sec. 8702, G.S. 1913:

Whenever any married woman shall have sexual inter-
course with a man, other than her husband, whether mar-
ried or not, both shall be guilty of adultery, and punished
by imprisonment in penitentiary for not more than two
years, or by fine of not more than $300, but no prosecution
shall be commenced except on complaint of husband or wife,
except when either shall be insane, or after one year.

Mississippi (To 1919)
Sec. 754, Hemingway Code 1917:

If any man and woman shall unlawfully cohabit, whether
in adultery or fornication, they shall be fined not to exceed
$500 each, and imprisonment in county jail not more than
six months. May be proved by circumstances showing
habitual sexual intercourse.

Sec. 755:

Sexual intercourse between male teacher and female pupil,
or male guardian and female ward, not being married to
each other, an offense punished same as 754.

Missouri
Sec. 4729, R.S. 909:

Every person who shall live in a state of open and notori-
ous adultery, shall on conviction be guilty of a misde-
meanor. "Occasional intercourse indulged in private, no
offense." State v. Chandler, 132 Mo. 155.

188 The Laws of Sex

Mont cma
Sec. 8343, R.C. 1907:

Every person who lives in open and notorious cohabita-
tion in a state of adultery or fornication is punishable by a
fine not exceeding $500 or by imprisonment in county jail
not exceeding six months or both. Subsequent marriage
bar to prosecution.

Nebraska
Sec. 8767, R.S. 1913:

If any married woman shall hereafter commit adultery
or if any married man shall hereafter commit adultery, or
if any unmarried man shall live and cohabit or have sexual
intercourse with a married woman, every person so offending
shall upon conviction thereof be imprisoned in the county
jail not exceeding one year. "Single act constitutes crime."
State v. Byrum, 60 Neb. 384.

Nevada
Sec. 6460, Rev. Laws 1912:

Lewdly and viciously cohabiting.

New Hampshire
Chap. 272, Sec. 1, P.S. 1901:

If any person shall commit adultery, such person shall
be imprisoned not exceeding one year and be fined not
exceeding $500, or be imprisoned not exceeding three years.

Sec. 2 :

If any married person shall commit an act, or have a
connection with an unmarried person, which would con-
stitute adultery if both were married, such person shall be
guilty of adultery and shall be punished accordingly.

Neva Jersey
P. 1760, Sec. 47, C.L. 1910:

Any person who shall commit adultery shall be guilty of
a misdemeanor. "A married man is not guilty of adultery

The Present Statutes 139

in having carnal connection with an unmarried woman."
State v. Lost, 16 N.J.L. 380.

New Mexico

Concubinage unlawful, Sec. 1776, Stats. 1915.
Model law passed 1921.

New York
Art. 8— Parker's Penal Code 1919.

Sec. 100:

Adultery is the sexual intercourse of two persons, either
of whom is married to a third person.

Sec. 101:

A person who commits adultery is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Sec. 102:

A person convicted of a violation of this article is pun-
ishable by imprisonment in a penitentiary or county jail,
for not more than six months or by a fine of not more than
$250, or both.

Sec. 103:

. A conviction under this article cannot be had on the
uncorroborated testimony of the person with whom the
offense is charged to have been committed.

North Carolina
Sec. 401, Jerome's Crim. Code, 4th Ed., 1916:

If any man and woman, not being married to each other,
shall lewdly and lasciviously associate, bed and cohabit
together, they shall be guilty of misdemeanor; provided,
that the admission or confession of one shall not be received
in evidence against the other.

Sec. 3350 (a), Par. 2, Gregory's revisal, 1917:

Any man and woman found occupying the same bedroom
in any hotel, public inn, or boarding house for any im-
moral purpose, or any man and woman registering or other-

140 The Laws of Sex

wise representing themselves to be husband and wife in any
hotel, public inn, or boarding house, shall be deemed guilty
of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be punished in
the discretion of the court.

North Dakota
Sec. 9579, Comp. L 1913 :

Adultery is the voluntary sexual intercourse of a mar-
ried person with a person other than offender's husband or
wife; and when the intercourse is between a married woman
and a man that is unmarried the man is also guilty of
adultery. No prosecution except on complaint of husband
or wife. Penalty — imprisonment in penitentiary not less
than one nor more than three years, or imprisonment in
county jail not exceeding one year, or by fine not exceeding
$500 or both.

Ohio (To 1918 only)
Sec. 13024, Page & Adams Gen. C. :

Whoever cohabits in a state of adultery or fornication
shall be fined not more than $200 and imprisoned not more
than three months.

"A single act of sexual intercourse is not a violation of
this section." State v. Brown, 47 O. S. 102.

Oklahoma
Sec. 2431, R.L. 1910:

The unlawful voluntary sexual intercourse of a married
person with one of the opposite sex; when crime is between
persons, only one of whom is married, both guilty of
adultery.

Sec. 2432:

Adultery is punishable by not more than five years in the
penitentiary or by fine not exceeding $500 or both.

Oregon
Sec. 2071, Lord's Oregon Laws, 1910:

If any person shall commit the crime of adultery, such

The Present Statute*

person, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by im-
prisonment in the penitentiary not less than six months nor
more than two years, or by imprisonment in the county jail
not less than three months nor more than one year or
by fine not less than $200 nor more than $1000. "Positive
evidence of the commission of adultery is rarely possible,
and a resort must be had to circumstantial evidence from
which the overt act may be inferred." State v. La More,
53 Ore. 261.

Sec. 2072:

Prosecution not to be commenced except upon complaint
of husband or wife or guardian of unmarried female under
twenty years. When adultery is committed between a mar-
ried woman and an unmarried man, both guilty of adultery.

Pennsylvania

Sec. 18, Par. 903, Stewart's Pardon's Digest, 1905 :

If any married man shall have carnal connection with any
woman not his lawful wife, or any married woman have
carnal connection with any man not her lawful husband, he
or she so offending shall be deemed guilty of adultery and
on conviction be sentenced to pay a fine, not exceeding $500,
and undergo an imprisonment not exceeding one year, or
both, or either, at the discretion of the court. "The fact
of adultery may be inferred from circumstances ; when a
married man is found in a room at a hotel at night with
a woman not his wife, both undressed, and there are indica-
tions that the bed had been occupied by two people." Com.
v. Mosier, 135 Pa. 221.

Porto Rico
Sec. 5711, R.S.&C. 1911:

Whoever, being married, shall voluntarily have sexual
intercourse with a person other than the offender's husband
or wife, is guilty of adultery and shall be fined not more

142 The Laws of Sex

than $2,000, or be imprisoned in jail not less than one year
nor more than five years.
Sec. 5712:

When adultery is committed between a married woman
and an unmarried man, or a married man and an unmarried
woman, the unmarried man or the unmarried woman shall
be deemed guilty of adultery.

Rhode Island
Sec. 2, Par. 1276, G.L. 1909:

Every person who shall commit adultery shall be im-
prisoned not exceeding one year or be fined not exceeding
$500; and illicit sexual intercourse between two persons,
when either of them is married, shall be deemed adultery in
each.

South Carolina
Sec. 382, Code 1912, Vol. 2:

Any man and woman who shall be guilty of the crime
of adultery or fornication shall be liable to indictment, and,
on conviction, shall be severely punished by a fine of not
less than $100 nor more than $500, or imprisonment for not
less than six months, nor more than one year or both.

Sec. 383 :

Adultery is the living together and carnal intercourse
with each other; or habitual carnal intercourse with each
other without living together, of a man and woman, both
being unmarried.

South Dakota
Sec. 4105, R.C. 1919:

Adultery is the unlawful voluntary sexual intercourse of
a married person, with one of the opposite sex, other than
husband or wife of offender, and when crime is committed
between persons only one of whom is married, both are
guilty of adultery.

The Present Statutes 143

Sec. 4106:

Penalty — imprisonment in penitentiary not exceeding five
years or fine not exceeding $500 or both.

Tennessee
No Law.

Texas

Vernon's Crim. S. 1918— Art. 490, Penal Code:

Adultery is the living together and carnal intercourse
with each other, or habitual carnal intercourse with each
other without living together, of a man and woman when
either is lawfully married to some other person.

Article 491 :

Proof of marriage may be certified copy of certificate or
marriage license and return thereon, by person present at
ceremony, or who has known the husband and wife to live
together as married persons.

Art. 492 :

When the offense of adultery has been committed, both
parties guilty, though only one of them may be married.

Art. 493:

Every person guilty of adultery shall be punished by fine
not less than $100 nor more than $1,000.

Utah
Sec. 8088, C.L. 1917:

Whoever commits adultery shall be punished by imprison-
ment in state prison not exceeding three years; and when
the act is committed between a married woman and a man
who is unmarried, both are guilty, and when act is com-
mitted between a married man and unmarried woman, the
man shall be deemed guilty of adultery.

144 The Laws of Sex

Vermont
Sec. T005, G.L. 1917:

A person who commits adultery shall be imprisoned in
the state prison not more than five years or fined not more
than $1,000 or both.

Sec. 7006:

A married man and unmarried woman who commit the
act are each guilty.

Sec. 7007:

A man with another man's wife, or a woman with another
woman's husband, found in bed together, under circum-
stances affording presumption of an illicit intention, shall
be imprisoned in the state prison not more than three years
or fined not more than $1,000.

Virginia
Sec. 3785, Code 1904:

If any person commits adultery or fornication, he shall
be fined not less than $20. And if he commits adultery or
fornication with any person whom he is forbidden to marry
by Sees. 2224 or 2225, he shall be confined in jail not
exceeding six months, or fined not exceeding $500 in discre-
tion of jury. "Illicit intercourse between an unmarried
man and a married woman is fornication in the man." Laf-
ferty's Case, 6 Grat. 672.

Washington
Chap. 98, Par. 841, Laws 1917:

Whenever any married person shall have sexual inter-
course with any person other than his or her lawful spouse,
both persons shall be guilty of adultery and upon convic-
tion thereof shall be punished by imprisonment in peniten-
tiary not more than two years or by a fine of not more than
$1,000. Complaint must be made by husband or wife.

The Present Statutes 145

West Virginia
Sec. 5309, Code 1913:

If any person commits adultery or fornication, he shall
be guilty of a misdemeanor, and fined not less than $20.
"Illicit intercourse between an unmarried man and a mar-
ried woman is fornication in the man." Commonwealth v.
Lafferty, 6 Grat. 672.

Wisconsin
Sec. 4576, S. 1917:

Any person who shall commit the crime of adultery shall
be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not more
than three years, nor less than one year, or by fine not
exceeding $1,000, nor less than $200, and when crime com-
mitted between married woman and unmarried man, both
guilty of adultery.

Wyoming
Sec. 5056, R.S. 1899:

Whoever cohabits with another in a state of adultery
or fornication or adultery and fornication, shall be fined
in any sum not exceeding $100, and be imprisoned in the
county jail not more than three months.

FORNICATION

Alabama (1919 Sess. laws not yet available)
Sec. 6221, Criminal Code, 1907:

If any man and woman live together in adultery or
fornication, each of them must on first conviction be fined
not less than $100, and may also be imprisoned in county
jail, or sentenced to hard labor for not more than six
months; on second conviction with same person, fine not
less than $300 and may also be imprisoned in county jail
or sentenced to hard labor for not more than twelve
months ; and on third conviction or any subsequent con-
victions with same person, must be imprisoned in peniten-
tiary for two years.

146 The Laws of Sex

Adultery is illicit connection where either is married and
includes fornication. Hinton's Case, 6 Alabama 864.

If neither married, it is fornication; if one married it
is fornication for one and adultery for other. Buchanan's
Case, 55 Alabama 154.

One act of illicit intercourse, and an agreement or consent
that it will be repeated if opportunity offers, is sufficient.
Bodiford's Case, 86 Alabama 67.

Arizona
No Law.

Arkansas

Illegal cohabitation. Must be habitual. K. & C. Stats.,
1916.

California
No Law.

Colorado
Sec. 1896, R.S. 1912 (Mills):

Any man and woman who shall live together in an open
state of adultery or fornication, or adultery and fornication
shall on conviction be fined any sum not exceeding $200
each, or imprisoned in county jail not exceeding six months ;
for second offense double punishment; third offense treble
and thus increasing punishment for each succeding offense.

Connecticut
Sec. 6383, R.S. 1918:

Every person who shall be guilty of fornication or lascivi-
ous carriage or behavior, shall be fined not more than $100
or imprisonment not more than six months, or both.

Delaware (To 1917.)
No Law.

District of Coliimbia

If an unmarried man or woman commit fornication, each
of them shall be punished by imprisonment not exceeding
six months or by a fine not exceeding $100.

The Present Statutes 147

Florida
Sec. 3520, R.S. 1914:

If any man commits fornication with a woman, each shall
be punished by imprisonment not exceeding three months,
or fine not exceeding $30.

Georgia
Sec. 372, Park's Code, 1914:

Any man and woman who shall live together in a state
of adultery or fornication, or of adultery and fornication,
or who shall otherwise commit adultery or fornication, shall
be severely indicted, and shall be severely punished as for a
misdemeanor. Suspension if they marry.

"If man and woman were in bed together, that would be
circumstance that would authorize jury to convict." 7 App.
600.

"If both parties who participated in illicit intercourse
were married, each is guilty of adultery; if both are single,
each is guilty of fornication; if one is married, and the
other single, each is guilty of adultery and fornication."
100 Ga. 360.

Hawaii
Sec. 4148, R.S. 1915:

Fornication is sexual intercourse between an unmarried
man and an unmarried woman. Punishable by fine not less
than $15 nor more than $50, or by imprisonment at hard
labor not less than one month nor more than three months.
Suspended if they marry.

Idaho

Must be habitual. Sec. 8289, Comp. Laws, 1919.

Illinois
Sec. 3493, Ann. Stats. 1913.

Indiana
Sec. 2353, Burns R. S. 1914:

Whoever cohabits with another in a state of adultery or

148 The Laws of Sex

fornication shall be fined not exceeding $500 or imprison-
ment in county jail not exceeding six months, or both.

"Adultery consists in man having unlawful carnal in-
tercourse with a married woman." Hood v. State, 56 In-
diana, 263.

Cohabitation by man with unmarried woman is fornica-
tion S. O.

"To cohabit in state of adultery or fornication means a
living together of the parties." Jackson v. State, 116 Ind.

Iowa
Sec. 4938, Code 1897:

Lewdly cohabiting. Must be habitual.

Kansas
No Law.

Kentucky (To Jan. 1919.)
Sec. 1520, Carrol S. 1915:

Every person who shall commit fornication or adultery
shall, for every offense, be fined not less than $20 and not
more than $50.

Louisiana (To and Including 1918)
No Law.

Maine
Sec. 7, P. 1482, R.S. 1916:

If an unmarried man commits fornication with an un-
married woman, they shall be punished by imprisonment for
not more than sixty days, and by a fine not exceeding $100.

Maryland
No Law.

Massachusetts
Sec. 14, P. 1767, R.S. 1902:

Whoever commits fornication shall be punished by im-
prisonment for not more than three months or by a fine of
not more than $30.

The Present Statutes 149

Michigan
Comp. Law 1915 — Sec. 15467, Sub. 6:

If any man and woman not being married to each other
shall lewdly and lasciviously associate and cohabit together
every such person shall be punished by imprisonment in the
county jail not more than one year or by fine not exceed-
ing $500.

No straight fornication law.

Minnesota
Chap. 193, Sec. 1, Laws 1919 :

Whenever any man and single woman have sexual in-
tercourse with each other, each is guilty of fornication and
shall be punished by imprisonment in county jail for not
more than ninety days, or by a fine of not more than $100.
Sec. 8703-a, Laws 1917:

If issue is conceived of fornication and within the period
of gestation or within sixty days after birth of living child
the father absconds from state with intent to evade proceed-
ings to establish paternity, he is guilty of felony and shall be
punished by imprisonment in penitentiary for not more than
two years.

Mississippi (To 1919)

Sec. 754, Hemingway Code, 1917:

If any man and woman shall unlawfully cohabit, whether
in adultery or fornication, they shall be fined not to exceed
$500 each, and imprisonment in county jail not more than
six months — may be proved by circumstances showing
habitual sexual intercourse.

Sec. 755:

Sexual intercourse between male teacher and female pupil,
or male guard and female ward, not being married to each
other, an offense punished same as Sec. 754.

150 The Laws of Sex

Missouri
No Law.

Montana
Sec. 8343, R.C. 1907:

Every person who lives in open and notorious cohabita-
tion in a state of adultery or fornication is punishable by
a fine not exceeding $500, or by imprisonment in county
jail not exceeding six months or both. Subsequent marriage
bar to prosecution.

Nebraska
Sec. 8794, R.S. 1913:

If any unmarried persons shall live and cohabit together
in a state of fornication, such persons so offending shall
each be fined in any sum not exceeding $100 and be im-
prisoned in county jail not exceeding six months. "Not
required that cohabitation be open and notorious." Mor-
feet vs. State, 64 Neb. 445.

Nevada
Sec. 6460, Rev. Laws 1912:

Lewdly and viciously cohabiting. Must be habitual.

New Hampshire
Chap. 272, Sec. 4, P.S. 1901:

If any person shall be guilty of fornication such person
shall be fined not exceeding $50, or be imprisoned not ex-
ceeding six months, but no person shall be convicted solely
upon the testimony of a partner in guilt.

New Jersey
P. 1761, Sec. 48, C.L. 1910, as amended by Chap. 140,

Laws 1919:

Any person who shall commit fornication shall be guilty
of a misdemeanor, and punished by fine not exceeding $50,
or imprisonment not exceeding six months, or both; pro-
vided in case of conviction for crime of any person between

The Present Statutes 151

ages of 16 and 25 years, who has not previously been
sentenced to imprisonment in a penitentiary or reformatory,
in this or other state, such person may be sentenced to
New Jersey State Reformatory for Men or New Jersey
State Reformatory for Women for an indeterminate period
the maximum not to exceed three years, and such person
may be dealt with, released or paroled from said institu-
tion at any time before expiration of three years in accord-
ance with rules and regulations of such institutions.

New Mexico
Sec. 1776, Stats. 1915 :

Concubinage unlawful if habitual.

New York
No Law.

North Carolina
Sec. 401, Jerome's Crim. Code, 4th Ed., 1916:

If any man and woman, not being married to each other,
shall lewdly and lasciviously associate, bed and cohabit to-
gether, they shall be guilty of a misdemeanor ; provided, that
the admission or confession of one shall not be received
in evidence against the other.

Sec. 3350 (a), Par. 2, Gregory's revisal, 1917:

Any man and woman found occupying the same bedroom
in any hotel, public inn, or boarding house for any im-
moral purpose, or any man and woman registering or
otherwise representing themselves to be husband and wife
in any hotel, public inn, or boarding house, shall be deemed
guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be pun-
ished in the discretion of the court.

North Dakota
Chap. 159, Laws 1915— Sec. 1 :

Every male and female person who are not married to
each other who shall have voluntary sexual intercourse are

152 The Laws of Sea:

separately guilty of the crime of fornication. A female
under eighteen years of age and under age of consent fixed
in Sec. 9563, which defines the crime of rape, is nevertheless
by her voluntary intercourse guilty of fornication as herein
defined. Any person over eighteen years of age violating
any of the provisions of this act shall be punished by a fine
of not more than $100 or by imprisonment in the county
jail not to exceed thirty days or by both. Juveniles to be
proceeded against under juvenile code.

Prosecution to be dismissed upon marriage of guilty
parties.

Ohio (To 1918 only)

Sec. 13024, Page and Adams Gen. C. :

Whoever cohabits in a state of adultery or fornication
shall be fined not more than $200 and imprisoned not more
than three months. "A single act of sexual intercourse is
not a violation of this section." State vs. Brown, 47 O.S.
102.

Oklahoma
No Law.

Oregon

Sec. 2075, Lord's Laws, 1910:
Lewd cohabitation. Habitual.

Pennsylvania
Sec. 247, P. 955, Stewart's Pardon's Digest, 1905 :

If any person shall commit fornication and be thereof
convicted, he or she shall be sentenced to pay a fine, not
exceeding $100, to the guardians, directors, or overseers
of the poor of the city, county or township where the offense
was committed, for the use of the poor, and any single
woman having a child born of her body, the same shall be
sufficient to convict such single woman of fornication.
Laws 1685.

The Present Statutes 153

Porto Rico
No Law.

Rhode Island
Sec. 8, P. 1277, G.L. 1909:

Every person who shall commit fornication shall be fined
not exceeding $10.

South Carolina
Sec. 382, Code 1912, Vol. 2 :

Any man and woman who shall be guilty of the crime of
adultery or fornication shall be liable to indictment, and
on conviction, shall be severely punished by a fine of not
less than $100 or more than $500, or imprisonment for not
less than six months, nor more than one year or both.
Sec. 384:

Fornication is the living together and carnal intercourse
with each other, or habitual carnal intercourse with each
other without living together, of a man and woman, both
being unmarried.

South Dakota

No Law.

Tevmessee

No Law.

Texas
Art. 494, Penal Code, Vernon's Crim. S., 1918:

Fornication is the living together and carnal intercourse
with each other, or habitual carnal intercourse with each
other without living together, of a man and woman, both
being unmarried.

Art. 495 :

Every person guilty of fornication shall be punished by
fine of not less than $50 nor more than $500.

Utah
Sec. 8090, C.L. 1917:

If an unmarried man or woman commits fornication, each

154 The Laws of Sea:

of them shall be punished by imprisonment in the county
jail not exceeding six months or by fine not exceeding $100.

Vermont

No Law.

Virginia
Sec. 3786, Code 1904:

If any person commits adultery or fornication, he shall
be fined not less than $20. And if he commits adultery or
fornication with any person whom he is forbidden to marry
by Sections 2224 or 2225, he shall be confined in jail not
exceeding six months, or fined not exceeding $500 in dis-
cretion of jury. "Illicit intercourse between an unmarried
man and a married woman is fornication in the man."
Lafferty's Case, 6 Grat. 672.

Washington
Sec. 2458, Rev. Code, 1915 :

Lewdly and viciously cohabiting — habitual.

West Virginia
Sec. 5309, Code 1913:

If any person commits adultery or fornication he shall
be guilty of a misdemeanor, and fined not less than $20.
"Illicit intercourse between an unmarried man and a mar-
ried woman is fornication in the man." "Commonwealth vs.
Lafferty, 6 Grat. 672.

Wisconsin
Sec. 4580, S. 1917:

Any man who commits fornication with a sane single
female over the age of sixteen years, each of them shall
be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not more
than six months or by fine not exceeding $100, or both.
Any man who commits fornication with a sane female of
previous chaste character under 21 shall be punished by
imprisonment in the state prison not more than four years,
or by fine not exceeding $200, or both.

The Present Statutes 155

Wyoming
Sec. 5056, R. S. 1899 :

Whoever cohabits with another in a state of adultery or
fornication, or adultery and fornication, shall be fined in
any sum not exceeding $100, and be imprisoned in the county
jail not more than three months.

"AGE OF CONSENT" PROVISIONS OF THE VARIOUS

STATES

(Includes regular sessions of 1919, unless otherwise stated)

Alabama

Carnal knowledge of girl under 12 is punishable by death
or imprisonment for not less than 10 years.

Carnal knowledge of a girl between 12 and 16 is punish-
able by imprisonment for from 2 to 10 years (not applica-
ble to boys under 16).

(Code 1907 s 7699 and 7700, latter amended by 1915, No.
97, p. 137.)

Alaska

Carnal knowledge of female under 16 (with her consent)
is deemed rape. Rape of female under 12 is punishable by
imprisonment for life; other female, imprisonment for from
3 to 20 years.

(Compiled Laws, 1913 s 1894-1895.)

A rizona

Carnal knowledge of female under 18 (not the wife of
perpetrator) constitutes rape; punishable by imprisonment
for life or for a term of years not less than 5. No con-
viction may be had against male who was under 14 at
time of act unless physical ability is proven.

(Revised Statutes 1913 s 231 and 234.)

A rkansas

Carnal knowledge of female under 16 is punishable by
imprisonment in the penitentiary from 1 to 21 years.
(Kirby's Digest, 1904 s 2008.)

156 The Laws of Sex

California

Sexual intercourse with female under 18 (not the wife of
perpetrator) constitutes rape, which is punishable by im-
prisonment for not more than 50 years, except that in
case the female is from 16 to 18, the punishment shall be
imprisonment in the county jail for not more than 1 year
or in the state prison for not more than 50 years, as
determined by the jury. No conviction shall be had against
male who was under 14 at time of act unless physical ability
is proven.

(Penal Code 1906 s 261 amended 1913 S 122: s 264
amended 1913 C 123.)

Colorado

For any male over 14 to have carnal knowledge of female
wider 18 (either with or without her consent) constitutes
the crime of rape, punishable by imprisonment in peniten-
tiary for from 1 to 20 years.

If the male is over 18 the crime constitutes rape in the
1st degree; if both are under 18 and it is not rape in the 1st
degree (i.e., without consent), it constitutes rape in the
3rd degree.

Subd. 10. By the female person of whatever age, not
being an accessory, where the male person is under the age
of 18, where such sexual intercourse is had at the solicita-
tion, inducement, importuning or connivance of such female
person, or where such female was at time of commission of
offense, a free, common, public or clandestine prostitute and
the male was, prior and up to time of commission of offense,
of good moral character; this is rape in 3rd degree.

First degree rape is punishable by imprisonment for life
or for a period not less than 3 years; 3rd degree rape is
punishable by fine of from $200 to $1000 or imprison-
ment from 1 to 5 years, or both fine and imprisonment,

The Present Statutes 157

or by commitment to the State Industrial School for boys or
girls, accessories to be punished the same as principals.
(Mills Revised Statutes, 1912 s 1777-1780.)

Connecticut

Carnal knowledge or abuse of female under 16 is subject
to imprisonment for not more than 30 years. (G. S. 1918
S. 6392.)

Delaware

Carnal knowledge of female under 7 is punishable by
death; may be reduced to life imprisonment.

Assault with intent to commit rape is subject to fine of
from $200 to $500, 30 lashes, and imprisonment not ex-
ceeding 10 years.

Lewdly playing with female child under 16 constitutes
a misdemeanor punishable by fine of $500 or imprisonment
for not more than 3 years. Harboring male or female
under 18 for purpose of sexual intercourse is subject to fine
of not more than $1000 or imprisonment for not more than
7 years (Code 1915 s 4706-4709).

District of Columbia

Carnal knowledge of a female child under 16 is punish-
able by imprisonment of from 5 to 30 years; may in dis-
cretion of jury be death by hanging.
(S. 808 Code 1919.)

Florida

Carnal knowledge of female under 10 is punishable by
death or imprisonment for life.

Carnal intercourse with unmarried female, of previous
chaste character, under 18 years of age is punishable by
imprisonment in state penitentiary for not more than 10
years, or fine not exceeding $2000.

Capacity of person to commit crime is to be determined
by jury.

158 TJie Laws of Sex

(Gen. Statutes 1906 s 3221; 3521 amended by 1918 Ch.
7732.)

Georgia

Age of consent 14 years. Penalty for violation same
as for rape which is death, unless jury recommends de-
fendant be punished as for misdemeanor.

(1918 No. 291, p. 259; Code 1910 s 93 and 94.)

Hawaii

Carnal knowledge of a female child under 1% shall be
punished by death or imprisonment for life.
(Revised Laws 1915 s 3895.)

Idaho

Sexual intercourse with female (not wife of perpetrator)
under 18 years of age constitutes rape, punishable by im-
prisonment for 5 years or may be imprisonment for life.

Conviction may not be had against person who was under
14 at time of act unless physical ability is established.

(Comp. S. 1919. Sees. 8262-65.)

Illinois

Any male person 17 years of age or more, having carnal
knowledge of any female person under 16 (not his wife),
either with or without her consent, is guilty of rape, punish-
able by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less than
1 year; may be extended to life imprisonment.

(Kurd's Revised Statutes 1917 C 38 s 237.)

Indiana

Carnal knowledge of female child under 16 constitutes
rape and is punishable by fine of $1000 or imprisonment
for from 2 to 21 years. If the female child is under 12 at
the time of the act imprisonment shall be for life.

(Burn's Ann. Statutes 1914 s 2250.)

The Present Statutes 159

Iowa

Carnal knowledge of female under 15 is subject to im-
prisonment for life or for any term of years.
(Code 1897, section 4756.)

Kansas

Carnal knowledge of female under 18 constitutes rape,
punishable by imprisonment of from 5 to 21 years.

(Gen. Statutes 1915 s 3392.)

"Evidence of character of witness confined to truth and
veracity," State v. Eberline, 47 K. 155.

Kentucky

Rape of child under 12 is punishable by death or life
imprisonment; carnal knowledge of female of and above 12
against her consent constitutes rape, punishable by im-
prisonment of from 10 to 20 years, or by death. Carnal
knowledge of female under 16 is subject to imprisonment
of from 10 to 20 years.

(Statutes 1915 s 1152-1155.)

Louisiana

Persons over 17 having carnal knowledge of unmarried
female between 12 and 18 (with her consent) is subject to
imprisonment not exceeding 5 years.

The penalty for rape is death ; attempt to commit rape
is punishable by imprisonment of from 5 to 20 years.

(Marr's R. S. 1915, Sees. 1610, 1633.)

Maine

Whoever, being more than 18 years of age, has carnal
knowledge of female child between 14 and 16 years of age,
is punishable by fine not exceeding $500, or by imprison-
ment for not more than 2 years. P. 82, Chap. 106, Laws
1917.

Maryland

Carnal knowledge of female child under 14 or imbecile,
non compos mentis, or insane, constitutes a felony punish-

160 The Laws of Sex

able by death or imprisonment for life or for a definite time
not less than 18 months nor more than 21 years.

Carnal knowledge of female between ages of 14 and 16,
a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment not more than
2 years, or fine not exceeding $500, or both ; not applicable
to males under 18 years. Bagby Code 1914, Vol. 3, Art.
27, Sees. 421-22.

Massachusetts

Carnal knowledge of female child under 16 is punishable
by imprisonment for life or for a term of years.

(Revised Statutes 1902, vol. 2, p. 1745 C 207 s 23, as
amended by Chap. 469, Acts 1913.)

Michigan

Any person who shall ravish and carnally know a female
wnder the age of 16 is punishable by imprisonment for life,
or for such period as court shall direct.

(Compiled Laws 1915 s 15211.)

Minnesota

Sexual intercourse with a female 10 years of age or more,
not the wife of the perpetrator and without her consent,
constitutes rape, punishable by imprisonment for from 7
to 30 years. Carnal knowledge of a female child under 18
years of age is punishable as follows:

1. If the child is under 10 years of age, imprisonment
for life ;

2. Child 10 to 14, imprisonment for from 7 to 30 years ;

3. Child 14 to 18, imprisonment in state prison or in
county jail for not more than one year.

No conviction may be had against male who was under
14 at time of act unless physical ability is established.
(Gen. Statutes 1913 s 8656.)

Mississippi

Carnal knowledge of female child under 1® is subject to
death or imprisonment for life.

The Present Statutes 161

For any male person to have carnal knowledge of un-
married female of previously chaste character, younger
than himself, and over 12 and under 18, he is punishable
by fine not exceeding $500 or imprisonment in jail not
longer than 6 months, or both, or by imprisonment in peni-
tentiary not exceeding 5 years, punishment to be fixed by
jury. Assault to commit rape punishable by same penalty.

(Hemingway's Code 1917, Sees. 1092-1096.)

Missouri

Carnal knowledge of a female child under 15 is punish-
able by death or imprisonment for not less than 5 years.

A person over 17 having carnal knowledge of any un-
married female of previous chaste character between 15
cmd 18 years of age is guilty of a felony punishable by
imprisonment in the penitentiary for 5 years, or fine of
from $100 to $500, or imprisonment in jail from 1 to 6
months, or both fine and imprisonment.

(Revised Statutes 1909 s 4471 and 4472 amended by
1913, p. 218.)

Montana

Person having sexual intercourse with female (not the
wife of perpetrator) under 18 years of age is deemed guilty
of rape, the penalty for which is imprisonment for not less
than 5 years.

No conviction can be had against person under 16 at
time of act, unless physical ability is established.

(Revised Statutes 1907, Penal Code, s 8336 amended by
1913, p. 15 C 16; s 8337 and 8339.)

Nebraska

Carnal knowledge of female child under 18 (with her
consent), unless such female child is over 15 and previously
unchaste, constitutes rape punishable by imprisonment in
penitentiary for from 3 to 20 years.

(Revised Statutes 1913 s 8588.)

162 The Laws of Sex

Nevada

Any person 16 years of age and upward having carnal
knowledge of female wider 16 (with or without her con-
sent) is guilty of rape, punishable by imprisonment for not
less than 5 years; may be extended to imprisonment for
life, or death penalty if extreme violence used.

(Chap. 234, p. 439, Laws 1919.)

New Hampshire

Carnal knowledge of female child under 16 is subject
to penalty of imprisonment not exceeding 30 years.
(Public Statutes 1901 C 278, p. 832 s 15.)

New Jersey

Any person 16 or over carnally abusing a female child
under 12, with or without her consent, is guilty of a high
misdemeanor, punishable by fine of not more than $5000
or imprisonment not exceeding 30 years, or both fine and
imprisonment. If the female child is between 12 and 16,
and the act is either with or without her consent, the offense
is also deemed a high misdemeanor and punishable by fine
not exceeding $2000 or imprisonment at hard labor not
exceeding 15 years, or both.

Compiled Statutes 1910, vol. 2, p. 1783 (Crimes s 115.)

New Mexico

Sexual intercourse with female umder 16 is punishable
by imprisonment for from 5 to 20 years.

Conviction may not be had against one under 14 at time
of act unless physical capacity is established.

Carnal knowledge of female under 10 is punishable by
imprisonment for life.

(Statutes 1915 s 1493-1495 amended by 1915 C 51.)

New York

Sexual intercourse with female (not the wife of the per-
petrator) under 18 years of age, without consent of victim,
constitutes rape in the 1st degree and is punishable by

The Present Statutes 163

imprisonment for not more than 20 years ; if with her con-
sent, it constitutes rape in the 2nd degree and is punishable
by imprisonment for not more than 10 years.

No conviction can be had against one under 14 at time
of act, unless physical ability is proven.

(Compiled Laws 1909, vol. 4 (penal), s 2010 and 2012.)

North Carolina

Person convicted of carnally knowing female under the
age of 1% shall suffer death.

(Pell's Revisal of 1905 C 81 s 3637 amended by 1917 C
29.)

In 1921 age of consent raised to 16.

North Dakota

Sexual intercourse with female under 18 (not the wife
of the perpetrator) is deemed rape; if the person com-
mitting the offense is 24 years of age or more, rape in the
1st degree is committed; if he is between 20 and 24, rape
in the 3rd degree; the offense is also deemed rape in the
3rd degree when the male is under W and the female is
under 18 and apparently gives her consent.

Rape in the 1st degree is punishable by imprisonment in
penitentiary for not less than 1 year; 2nd degree rape is
punishable as follows: If the defendant is a minor, by
imprisonment in the state penitentiary for not less than
1 year; 3rd degree rape is punishable by commitment to
Reform School for not less than 1 nor more than 3 years.

(Comp. L. 1913 s 9563-9569 amended by 1915 C 201
and 1917 Ch. 193.)

Ohio (To July 10, 1919

Whoever has carnal knowledge of female under 12,
forcibly and against her will, shall be punished by imprison-
ment in the penitentiary during life.

A person being 18 years of age to carnally know a female
under 16 (with her consent), shall be imprisoned in the

164 The Laws of Sex

penitentiary for from 1 to 20 years, or in the county jail
for 6 months.

Whoever being 18 years of age attempts to carnally
know a female voider 16 (with her consent), shall be im-
prisoned in the penitentiary for not less than 1, nor more
than 15 years, or for 6 months in the county jail.

The Court is authorized to hear testimony in mitigation
or aggravation of such sentence.

(General Code 1910 s 12413, 12414, 12415, amended
by 1915, p. 243.)

Oklahoma

1. Sexual intercourse with a female (not the wife of the
perpetrator) under 16 years of age, or lunatic or person
of unsound mind, is deemed rape in the 1st degree.

2. Where female is over 16 and under 18, and of previous
dhaste and virtuous character is deemed rape in the 2nd
degree. Conviction may not be had against one who was
voider 14 at the time of act, unless physical ability is proven.

Penalty. If the male was over 18 and the female under 14
(or if over 14 and the act was accomplished by means of
force, etc.), the offense constitutes rape in the 1st degree,
and is punishable by death or imprisonment in the peniten-
tiary for not less than 15 years. Rape in the 2nd degree
(which is all other offenses), is punishable by imprisonment
in the penitentiary from 1 to 15 years.

(Revised Laws 1910, vol. 1, s 2414-2419.)

Oregon

Any person over 16 who shall carnally know a female
child under 16 is guilty of rape, punishable by imprison-
ment in the penitentiary from 3 to 20 years.

(Lord's Oregon Laws 1910, s 1912.)

Pennsylvania

For any person to carnally know a female child under 16
(with or without her consent), he is guilty of felonious rape
and subject to fine not exceeding $1000 and imprisonment

The Present Statutes 165

not exceeding 15 years. If jury finds such child was not
of good repute and that the act was with her consent de-
fendant may be convicted of fornication only (which is
punishable by fine of not more than $100).

(Stewart's Pardon's Digest 1905, vol. 1, p. 1005, Art.
85.)

Any person who takes a female child under 16 for the
purpose of prostitution or sexual intercourse, or inveigles
or entices any such minor female child into a house of ill-
fame or elsewhere for the purpose of prostitution or sexual
intercourse, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and
subject to imprisonment for not more than 5 years or fine
not exceeding $1000, or both.

(May 28, 1885, P. L. 27.)

Porto Rico

Sexual intercourse with a female under 14 (not the wife
of the perpetrator) is deemed rape and punishable by im-
prisonment in the penitentiary for not less than 5 years.

No conviction can be had against a person who was
under 14 at the time the act was committed unless physical
ability is proven.

(Revised Statutes and Codes 1911 s 5697 and 5698.)

Rhode Island

A person unlawfully and carnally knowing and abusing a
girl under 15 shall be imprisoned not exceeding 16 years.

The penalty for rape is imprisonment for life or for any
term not less than 10 years.

(General Laws 1909, C 347, p. 1276, s 3; C 343, p. 1251,
s 5.)

South Carolina

Any person who shall unlawfully and carnally know and
abuse a female child under 14 shall be punished for rape
(the penalty for which is death by hanging or imprison-
ment for not more than 40 years nor less than 5 years).

166 The Laws of Sex

Provided, however, that if the child is over 10 years of age
the penalty may be reduced to imprisonment in the peni-
tentiary for not more than 14 years.

(Code 1912, vol. 2 [Criminal] s 143; s 141-142.)

South Dakota

Sexual intercourse with a female child wnder 18 (not
the wife of the perpetrator) constitutes rape. If the child
was tinder 10 the offense is rape in the 1st degree and
punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for not less
than 10 years; otherwise the offense constitutes rape in
the 2nd degree and is punishable by imprisonment for not
more than 20 years.

Conviction may not be had against one under 14 at time
of act, unless physical ability is established.

(R. C. 1919, Sees. 4092-4098.)

Tennessee

Any person carnally knowing and abusing a female under
12 shall on conviction be punished as for rape (death by
hanging, which may be commuted to imprisonment for life
or for a term of years not less than 10 years).

Unlawful sexual intercourse with a female child between
12 and 21 constitutes a felony, and if not under circum-
stances constituting rape is punishable by imprisonment
for from 3 to 10 years; not applicable when the female is
over 12 and a bawd, lewd or kept female.

(Shannon's Code 1918, s 6451, 6455, 6456.)

Assault on female under age of 12 years, with intent to
unlawfully know her shall be punished as rape. (Chap. 36,
p. 85, Laws 1919.)

Texas

Sec. 1. Carnal knowledge of female under age of eigh-
teen other than wife of person, provided if woman is be-
tween 15 and 18, defendant may show she was not of previ-
ous chaste character as a defense. Punishable by imprison-

The Present Statutet 167

ment in penitentiary for life or not less than 5 years.
Person under 14 may not be convicted.

(P. 123, Laws 1918.)

Utah

Sexual intercourse with a female wnder 13 (not the
wife of the perpetrator) constitutes rape punishable by im-
prisonment for not less than 5 years. Conviction may
not be had if the defendant was under 14 at time of act,
unless physical ability is established.

Carnal knowledge of a female between 13 and 18 con-
stitutes a felony. The penalty for a felony when not
specifically provided is imprisonment not exceeding 5 years.

(Compiled Laws 1917, Sees. 8105-8109.)

Vermont

Any person over 16 who shall ravish or carnally know
a female under 16 (with or without her consent) is deemed
guilty of rape, punishable by imprisonment for not more
than 20 years or fine of not more than $2000, or both.

If a person under 16 has unlawful carnal knowledge of
a female under 16, with her consent, both are guilty of
a misdemeanor and may be committed to the State In-
dustrial School; if without her consent and by force, the
punishment is as in case of rape.

(Gen. Laws 1917, Sees. 6822, 6825.)

Virginia

Carnal knowledge of a female child under 15 is punish-
able by death or imprisonment for from 5 to 20 years; if
child is between ages of 14 and 15 subsequent marriage of
parties is bar.

(Code 1904, vol. 2, s 3680; amended by 1916, C 478
and Chap. 82, Laws 1918.)

Washington

Every male person who shall carnally know and abuse any
female child under the age of 18 years, not his wife, and

168 The Laws of Sex

every female person who shall have sexual intercourse with
any male child under the age of 18 years, not her husband,
shall be punished as follows:

(1) When such child is under the age of 10 years, by
imprisonment in the state penitentiary for life.

(2) When such child is 10 and under 15 years of age,
by imprisonment in the state penitentiary for not less than
5 years.

(3) When such child is 15 and under 18 years of age
by imprisonment in the state penitentiary for not more
than 10 years, or by imprisonment in the county jail for
not more than 1 year.

(Sec. 2436, Rem. Code 1916.)
(As amended by Laws 1919.)

West Virginia

Carnal knowledge of a female under 14 i« punishable by
death or imprisonment in the penitentiary for from 7 to
20 years. Not applicable to one who was wnder 14 if the
female was over 12 and gave her consent.

(Hogg's Code 1913, vol. 3, s 5166.)

Wisconsin

Any person over 18 who ravishes or carnally knows a
female under 16 is punishable by imprisonment for not
more than 35 nor less than 1 year, or by fine not exceeding
$200.

And person 18 or under who shall unlawfully and carnally
know and abuse a female under 18 shall be punished by
imprisonment in the state prison for not more than 10 nor
less than 1 years, or fined not exceeding $200.

(Statutes 1917, s 4382.)

Any man who commits fornication with a sane female
of previous chaste character under age of 21, shall be
punished by imprisonment in state prison not more than
4 years or by fine not exceeding $200, or both.

(Statutes 1917, s 4580.)

The Present Statutes 169

Wyommg

Unlawful carnal knowledge of a female child under 18
(with or without her consent) constitutes rape, which is
punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less
than 1 year; may be for life.

(Compiled Statutes 1910, s 5803.)

CHAPTER VH

THE STANDARDIZATION OF SEXUAL CONDUCT

In attempting to determine the province of the state in
regard to the relation between the sexes, two fundamental
facts relating to human conduct should be borne clearly in
mind. First, the individual is a complex of instincts and
emotions, many of which act in independence of the will,
and second, behavior is regulated by public opinion super-
imposed upon conscience and desire. The primitive sensa-
tions, such as hunger, thirst, sleep, love and pain cannot
beyond narrow limits be affected by the normal mind, al-
though their translation into directive action can to a large
extent be controlled by the will. For example, a prisoner
on hunger strike may refuse food until he perishes from
inanition, but the physiological sensations incident to star-
vation operate in his case as well as in another. Or again,
a man marooned in an open boat at sea with insufficient
water aboard may of his ortra volition permit a comrade to
drink while he himself goes thirsty, yet he suffers the physi-
cal torment of thirst with all the intensity of his sentient
being. The power of the mind in the normal individual does
not extend very far into the province of the basic physiologi-
cal sensations, and statutes which adjudicate hunger, thirst,
pain or love are therefore anachronisms in legislation. While
it is entirely reasonable for any community to enact laws
designed to direct these impulses along lines which are not
detrimental to the commonwealth, still it is overstepping
the mark to an illogical degree when it pretends to dictate
as to the intimate sensations of the individual. To demand
that two human beings shall at any period of their lives

170

The Standardization of Sexual Conduct 171

promise to love one another until death do them part, and
to offer legal concessions to exact this agreement, is as
anomalous as it would be to require them to assert their con-
trol over taste or smell or any other bodily sensation. Genu-
ine love is no more a matter of the voluntary control of
the individual than are the olfactory or gustatory nerves,
although its outward expression may to a very considera-
ble extent be regulated by the private or public conscience.

Much of the difficulty associated with the regulation of
the relation between the sexes is due to the lack of a clean-
cut differentiation between the voluntary and the involun-
tary spheres of sexual action. While a man can obviously
restrain himself from having sexual relations with his be-
loved, still, all experience goes to prove that he cannot even
by a supreme act of the will control his affectional emotions
in her direction. Even if she is the wife of another man
or beyond his reach for any other reason, his passion is
none the less strong and none the less imperative. While
it is true that love and all the other physiological emotions
can to some extent be inhibited or magnified by the will
and by environment, yet in their essence they are beyond hu-
man might under normal conditions of mentality. The de-
ranged intellect or local disorders of the central nervous
system may free the individual from his ordinary physio-
logical reactions, but the normal mind registers emotions
even though they be precisely at variance with desire or
intention.

It is not to be supposed that Lancelot or Guinevere
desired to love one another, for they both felt it to be a
mortal stain on their honor that the emotion awakened in
their hearts, yet they were utterly incapable of subduing
their passion. It is a matter of everyday experience chroni-
cled time without end, both in real life and in fiction, that
love is an entirely independent arbiter of the emotions. To
arouse love when it does not exist is as impossible as to
deny love once it is aflame, for it is like the spirit which

172 The Laws of Sex

animates the human body, an ethereal, inexplicable thing
rooted in the flesh, but seemingly independent of it.

For men to attempt to legislate about Love, to hammer
him out shackles in the form of law or custom, is to em-
bark upon an enterprise bound from the outset to meet
misfortune. Men know too little about Love in their own
lives to venture to prescribe his limitations. Strange, mys-
tical, all-consuming power, it envelops the life of man in
its glow and brings to him some premonition of his divine
office as creator. Born again at the crest of his mental
and physical vigor, man senses in love the wellspring of
the fountain of life and he drinks with the same instinctive
abandon that he first suckled the breast of his mother. Re-
freshed, reinvigorated, inspired anew, his spiritual rebirth is
a valid token of the strength and purity of his emotion.
Love is not amenable to human law, for it is not a force
comprehended by human beings. Even true lovers do not
know what the indomitable force is that brings them to-
gether. Like the attraction of the North to the magnetized
needle, it is an observable but as yet inexplicable phenomenon.
As a reality in human life it is clearly recognizable, but
whence it comes and whither it goes man is as yet incom-
petent to tell.

Precisely why two adult human beings, self-sufficient, self-
contained, with various personal and social interests, should
of a sudden be delivered to this incomprehensible and all-
consuming passion for one another, which makes or mars
their lives, for which they will undergo any amount of in-
convenience and suffering, is matter for deep thought, but
certainly not for legislation. It would be as idle for men
to make laws that lightning should strike constantly in the
same places as for them to enact legislation designed to
limit the sphere of man's supreme emotion.

If it were possible to analyze the attraction that binds
men and women together through life in a perfect spiritual
and physical union, it would be of untold benefit to the race

The Standardization of Sexual Conduct 173

to write this knowledge down in the form of statutes. Since,
however, this information is not at hand, the present ob-
ject of the state should be to direct its attention to the
more practical aspects of the relation between the sexes
and not to interfere in matters of which it is palpably
ignorant.

Love is but another name for sexual selection, and nature
is replete with evidence that the operation of this law is
beneficial to the deyelopment of any species. Inbreeding,
as among members of the same family, the crossing of dis-
tant races, as between the Negro and the Caucasian, the
choice of inferior or deficient members of the same group,
all are antagonized by sexual selection. The emancipation
of women, their economic and political independence, as
well as the development of a greater degree of industrial
democracy throughout the whole social order is essential to
the proper adjustment of the relation between the sexes.
Both men and women must be spiritually and economically
free before they will be in a position to exercise a wise choice
in the selection of their mates. Any social or political
reform which tends to facilitate the wholesome and natural
development of the human race furthers by that same incre-
ment the solution of the problem of the social evil.

In the past, the subjection of women has been especially
an obstacle to racial progress, for it is well known that
under a natural order the ultimate power of sexual selection
is vested in the female. An old Maori proverb says: "Let
a man be ever so good looking, he will not be much sought
after ; but let a woman be ever so plain, men will still eagerly
seek after her." In the crossing between unequal races the
man almost always belongs to the superior race.

While the association of the problem of sex with the whole
economic problem is clearly apparent, still the two are by
no means one and the same thing. Even under an ideal eco-
nomic system, some standardization of the sexual life of the
race would still be necessary if the rights of the individuals

174 The Laws of Sex

involved were to be properly safeguarded. Doubtless in
an Utopian group, composed of perfect human beings, stat-
utes of all kinds could be done away with and instinct sub-
stituted for law, but humanity has not yet achieved a state
of evolution consonant with such procedure.

The conduct of the individual is deeply influenced by the
estimation of his fellows, and the conscience of the race
phrased in public opinion is a valuable directive force in"
human affairs. People will often behave secretly in a man-
ner very different from that which they would follow in
the public view, and the individual conscience is frequently
a feeble agency when unsupported by the knowledge that
detection and penalization may result from the indulgence
of conduct which is known to be wrong. Moreover, the racial
standards exercise a subtle and extremely powerful influence
on the individual point of view, for the average person is
too intellectually slothful and too timid to carve out an
ethical code of his own. That which is accepted as right
or wrong by the community under ordinary circumstances
is accepted as right or wrong by the individual as well.
However, before personal conduct can come under the judg-
ment of the group as a whole, some practical mechanism for
bringing it out into the open has to be devised. If there
were no laws regulating contracts, and no facilities for
enforcing such laws, the conduct of the individual in rela-
tion to making contracts could scarcely be brought before
the public view. A man could make a contract and then
at will break it, and except for the clamor of his victim,
which could usually be explained away, the community would
know nothing of the whole procedure.

In the absence of definite standards concretely framed
in the form of law, both the individual and the public are
at a disadvantage in passing judgment upon any given act.
The disrepute in which personal loans without security are
held, and the painful situations which often develop in con-
nection with such informal transactions indicate the utili-

The Standardization of Sexual Conduct 175

tarian value of legal procedures. Personal relations are
clarified and placed upon a concrete and mutually compre-
hensible basis when due attention is paid to legal require-
ments. The convenience and efficiency of the whole social
order is to a great degree dependent upon the complex
system of law which has grown up under civilization. The
difference in individual points of view is so extreme that
even thoroughly honorable people could scarcely live hap-
pily together in community life were it not for the definition
with which the law has marked out property rights and has
otherwise fixed the limits of personal liberty.

Heretofore in the realm of sex, there has been no ra-
tional effort to define the rights of the individuals involved
in terms consonant with modern civilization. Custom has
decreed that monogamous marriage should constitute the
recognized relation between the sexes, but alongside of this
institution illicit relationships have been permitted over
which the state has had no adequate power of supervision.
While the state has called marriage the legal relation be-
tween the sexes, it has failed to make sexual intercourse
outside marriage in a practical sense illegal, for even in
those states where there is a statute against fornication,
no adequate effort has been made to put this law into opera-
tion. Public opinion has consistently overlooked sexual re-
lationships outside marriage, provided the girl was over the
age of consent, and provided further that she was supposed
to give her consent to the relationship.

The study of existing statutes as actually enforced brings
to light the fact that the modern state has built up no
definite standard for sex relations between adult men and
women. They may marry if they like, in which case a super-
abundance of laws become operative, or they may live to-
gether in disregard of marriage, in which event the state
washes its hands of the whole transaction. If either of the
partners to fornication happens to be married, he or she
may be held for adultery, but action must in practice be

176 The Laws of Sex

brought by the injured wife or husband, for the state does
not feel any degree of responsibility in such matters.

Moreover, the consensus of opinion with regard to the
gravity of the offense of adultery is in a very fluid condi-
tion, for, as has been seen in some states, it is technically
punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary, while in
others, such as Maryland, the maximum penalty is a fine
of ten dollars.

As was shown in a previous chapter, a similar condition
exists with regard to the age at which a minor is considered
to be capable of giving consent to the sexual act. The man-
ual of the United States Army provides that any man who
seduces a girl under the age of ten years is guilty of rape,
and may be court-martialed. In Colorado and in many of
the other Western states, 18 is the age fixed upon, and in
Maryland and some other states the statute provides that
seduction of a girl under the age of 14 constitutes rape,
while carnal knowledge of a girl between 14 and 16 merely
amounts to a misdemeanor.

In actual practice, the responsibility for the prosecu-
tion of these cases is almost invariably left to the girl or
her family, for the state takes little interest in these affairs,
and is not sufficiently equipped with detective service and
the like to handle them efficiently. It is only when the man
is a Negro or when rape has been conspicuously accom-
plished by physical force that the community awakens to
a sense of its responsibility. Then there is a great hue
and cry and even a hanging may be in order. If a girl
of 16 in Maryland is persuaded by a man to have inter-
course with him he is guiltless under the law, but if he uses
physical force to bring her to submit to him, he may pay
the penalty of his act by being hanged.

In the enforcement of the statutes, willingness on the
part of the woman to accede to sex relations outside mar-
riage, appears to be the sole criterion of the state in regard
to the virtue or vice of sex relations. This one point being

The Standardization of Sexual Conduct 177

settled, and the woman having agreed, the state then fails
to make adequate provision for the offspring and leaves
the woman without redress in the event that the man sees
fit to desert her and her child.

The general public does not realize what an enormous
number of cases of the seduction of young children actually
occurs, for most of these cases never come before the courts,
and of the few that are brought to trial the majority are
dismissed for lack of evidence. One Baltimore physician
who was called upon to examine the children connected with
these cases, reports that in the course of one year in Bal-
timore City more than one thousand little girls under the
age of 12 years were found to be the victims of unscrupu-
lous men. It is of interest to note that of the insignificant
number of men convicted of assaults upon children, the
average punishment inflicted was less than three months in
jail.

Since it is well known that the ranks of prostitution are
recruited from girls who have been seduced at a tender age,
it would appear that willingness on the part of a girl to
accede to her seduction was perhaps hardly a sufficient cri-
terion for interference on the part of the state. In the
matter of property the state does not hesitate to decree
21 years as the age at which a girl may handle her property
independently, yet in a matter which concerns both the
girl and the state far more significantly than mere pe-
cuniary values, the state permits a girl to accede to her
physical and moral ruin from the age of 12 years upward.

The question of illegitimacy also enters in, for even if a
girl is willing to participate in illicit relations, the child
has certain rights which ought to be respected. There is
no act which is so terrible in its consequences upon children
as irresponsible sex relations, irrespective of whether the
parents agreed to the relationship or not. Precisely why
this fact has not permeated the public conscience it is dif-
ficult to tell, for the half-breed, the degenerate and the fee-

178 The Laws of Sex

ble-minded are present in every community to tell the story.
There is no more unspeakable offense that a father can per-
petrate against his child than to give it a mother who is
too low in scale for him to recognize openly as his mate;
yet throughout America the mulatto bears silent testimony
to the fact that thousands upon thousands of children have
been cursed by their fathers in this way.

The white man who anathematizes the colored woman and
who refuses her the legal right of marriage with his own
race, is not too proud to have sex relations with her and
to give his son the dark skin which he so scorns. Moreover,
having given him a Negro inheritance the father promptly
deserts him altogether, denies him his rightful name and
leaves him to be reared as an outcast even in the inferior
group. No child could have more righteous or more dread-
ful cause for just complaint against his parent than the
illegitimate half-breed colored child, and it is doubtful if
one human being could be more grievously outraged by
another than in this case. Yet well thinking, high bred
white men feel no chagrin at having intercourse with col-
ored girls, and the state stands aloof, refusing to assume
responsibility.

Similarly men feel no especial prick of conscience if fee-
ble-minded girls submit to their embraces even though they
know that through the sexual act they may be giving a
half-witted inheritance to their children. In cases such as
these the responsibility of the state to its future citizens
is clearly apparent, and is not vindicated merely by deter-
mining whether or not the woman willingly accedes to the
relationship.

Every year in America thousands upon thousands of ille-
gitimate children are born, many of them are of inferior
inheritance, many of them are not; all of them come into
the world under a disadvantage. They have no legal name
or status; they do not enjoy the property rights of other

The Standardization of Sexual Conduct 179

children; their right of maintenance and education is insuf-
ficiently assured. Myriads of them die within their first
year, suffering from neglect and malnutrition. Their moth-
ers are incompetent to care for them alone, and if they
grow up the knowledge of their origin is a constant re-
proach to them. The state passes them by in its virtuous
hypocrisy, providing perhaps a foundling asylum or a mis-
erable pittance extorted with difficulty from an unwilling
father. That their mothers were willing to have sexual
intercourse with their fathers has satisfied the state; the
protection of the race stock and the assurance of the rights
of the most helpless of all citizens are matters of indiffer-
ence.

The attitude of the state toward the problem of sex is
an exact mirror picture of the attitude of the average man
on the same problem, which is but natural, since in these
affairs men have had supreme power in framing and enforc-
ing the statutes. Men have regarded rape as a serious of-
fense for it might affect the women in their own families,
their wives or their daughters ; they have also regarded the
seduction of young children as a more or less objectional
practice, although the little girl under the paternal roof
was in a comparatively safe position. At the same time,
they have desired a free rein for themselves in the pursuit
of sexual enjoyment, which has predicated the availability
of a considerable number of women. The thought of illigiti-
macy has scarcely entered their minds, for by the time a
girl becomes pregnant they have usually lost their interest
in her, or are prepared to do so. Moreover, men have a
happy way of thinking that if a girl submits to one man
she is doubtless available to many others, so that paternity
is more or less dubitable. Being held in no wise responsible
by the state in their relations with compliant women, they
have assumed that it was only necessary for them to per-
suade the women to yield to them in order to make their

180 The Laws of Sex

act acceptable. A little specious love making or a small
financial gift being successful, they have proceeded to the
indulgence of desire with few compunctions.

When to their chagrin it was discovered that venereal
disease resulted from their promiscuous habits, they imme-
diately called upon the state to detect and eliminate the in-
fectious woman. Restraint on their part from exposure to
the sources of infection being contrary to their wishes, they
discounted justice and hygiene in regard to illicit relations
and wrote down statutes relating to promiscuity directed
exclusively toward their partners in prostitution. They also
set up lock hospitals for women only, retaining to themselves
the sole right to disseminate venereal infection. Relying
upon their own instinctive virtue, they failed to protect
wedlock against venereal contamination, with the result that
countless innocent women and children have paid with their
lives for men's sexual license.

From a consideration of the existing statutes, it is clear
that the first step toward bringing order out of chaos is
for the state to define what it considers the proper rela-
tion between the sexes, and then with all its power and
prestige to outlaw all relationships which do not fall within
this definition. Men and women must be brought to ac-
knowledge their sex relations publicly as they do in mar-
riage, for where secrecy is permitted degradation of the
sex life of the individual has been found to ensue. If a
man were forced openly to recognize the colored woman or
the deficient girl with whom he now consorts as his mate,
which in practical fact she temporarily is, he would soon
learn of the public's disapproval of such relationships. It
is only the fact that he is able to conceal his conduct with
these women from the respectable members of his acquaint-
ance that makes it possible for him to indulge his base de-
sires with no qualms of conscience. The racial conscience
would quickly intervene and inhibit his desires if the facts
of his conduct were presented to the public view. In the

The Standardization of Sexual Conduct 181

absence of any legal standard for the relation between
the sexes, public opinion is impotent to judge the conduct
of the individual, for it has no adequate means of ascer-
taining in what kind of sexual conduct the members of the
community are indulging. With the standard defined, and
with all other relationships placed under the ban of the
law men would be made answerable for their sexual acts,
and they would promptly order their lives in a manner
more or less consonant with public approval.

The points of importance to be considered in framing a
standard for the relations between the sexes are, first, that
all men and women shall be required by the law to acknowl-
edge their sexual mates publicly and openly. Clandestine
or unregistered relationships cannot be connived at by the
law, for it is impossible for the state to regulate relation-
ships of which it is ignorant. Second, the standard adopted
by the state should insure liberty in sexual selection. It
should not operate to deny freedom in love, for if it does
it will neither command nor deserve obedience. Third, it
should act to insure a father as well as a mother to all
offspring and should recognize the equal rights of all chil-
dren under the law. It will be seen that these three essential
factors would be included in the present custom of monoga-
mous marriage if sex relationships outside of wedlock were
made illegal, if divorce were freely permitted on grounds of
incompatibility and if the common parentage of a chifd
constituted marriage.

There appears to be no doubt but that the mating of
one man with one woman insures a better opportunity for
the complete development of the sex life of all the members
of the community than is afforded either by polygamy or
polyandry. Moreover, modern experiments in polygamy
and group marriage as among the Mormons or in the Oneida
colony have been admittedly signal failures. The trend of
civilization has set so strongly in the direction of the one
man and the one woman union that it would be impossible

182 The Laws of Sex

in practice to secure public recognition for polygamy, poly-
andry or promiscuity in sex relationships. Easy divorce on
the other hand has been constantly gaining in favor, as is
indicated by the U. S. Census figures which show that one
marriage out of every nine in America ends in the divorce
courts. While the amount of marital unhappiness which
these statistics predicate is on humanitarian grounds highly
deplorable, still it cannot reasonably be argued that it would
be more wholesome for the men and women involved or for
their offspring if these people were forced to continue to
live together under conditions favorable to reproduction,
than if they were permitted to separate and to try their
fortunes again in the lists of matrimony. When people are
under duress to live together they are far less apt to en-
deavor to make themselves agreeable to one another than
when they are permitted free choice in their companionship.
Monogamy with its common interests in the home and in
the children appears to be so inherent a desire among civ-
ilized peoples that it is scarcely conceivable that it should
be necessary to chain men and women to one another to
insure permanence in the union. Moreover, if it were es-
sential to link them together against their will, if it were
to be supposed that monogamy would cease to exist if it
were not forced upon people as unwilling slaves, it would bo
open to question if it would not be wiser to give over the
institution altogether and set up some other standard in
its stead. The basis for the relation between the sexes
must be sought in nature, as it is among the birds, and
not be merely an idle form superimposed through arbitrary
law upon the conscience and will of adult human beings. It
is the fact that highly developed men and women prefer
to live together in the monogamous state that unquestiona-
bly makes this standard of the relation between the sexes
more desirable than any other.

Instead of the present inelastic form of marriage which
may be so easily entered upon and from which people have

The Standardization of Sexual Conduct 185

such great difficulty in extricating themselves, the state
should institute a definite form of marriage contract, not
binding the individuals to eternal love, for of that contin-
gency they can at no time speak positively, but merely re-
quiring that they recognize one another publicly as mates
in advance of the sexual act, and that they subscribe to
the various parental and property obligations that may
become involved in the relationship. It should also be in-
cluded in the contract that either of the parties to the
agreement could withdraw at will, provided that he or she
made adequate provision for dependent children and ad-
justed property considerations in accordance with defined
law. Where the wife and mother fulfills her duty to the
household, she has a moral lien on the earnings of her hus-
band, which is already in some degree recognized by the
state, and in the preparation of the marriage contract this
right to some material fruits of her labors should be recog-
nized in concrete and unmistakable form. Mutual consent
in withdrawing from the contract should not be required,
for this would hamper the individual unduly and to no good
purpose, in his freedom in sexual selection, and would tend
to give moral and biological grounds for illicit relationships,
as has been the case in the past.

It would undoubtedly be well to require that either party
who desired to cancel the contract should give due notice
to the state of his or her intention so to do, and that a
certain number of months should elapse between notification
and cancellation. This would tend to preclude hasty action
resulting from transitory disagreements, and would enable
the state to assure proper provisions being made in behalf
of the children.

There may be those who would anticipate a complete
dissolution of the home and the state if marriage were
placed upon this practical and dissoluble basis, but those
who believe in the moral and biological foundation of the
monogamous tie will entertain no such apprehension. The

184* The Laws of Sex

very reason why the state would be justified in defining
the relation between the sexes as a monogamous union, is
that men and women tend to pair together monogamously
when their conduct is not so contrary to their own best
interests as to demand concealment. Doubtless with the de-
velopment of a more humane economic system, and the fur-
therance of opportunities for natural association between
the sexes before marriage, a wiser choice in mating will
eventuate, and the facilities for cancelling the marriage
contract be less and less made use of.

Those who fear that men would change their mates with
undue frequency if divorce were permitted on the simple
request of either partner, do not consider the fact. that,
the majority of men now live in clandestine promiscuity,
nor do they realize that the financial obligations involved
in matrimonial ventures would prohibit many marriages for
the average man.

Under this standard the ideal of the life-long monoga-
mous union would be realized by those capable of compre-
hending its benefits. Love would be granted the utmost
freedom compatible with the welfare of the children and
the state, sexual selection would be given rightful recogni-
tion, and marriage would be changed from a coercive bond-
age into an institution based upon genuine affection The
dual nature of sex would be recognized in its entirety, mu-
tual responsibility in the sex relationship could to a maxi-
mum degree be assured by the state, and justice would at
last find its way at least into the relations of men and
women as the progenitors of the race.

Since the child is the natural fruit of mating, the co-
parentage of offspring should constitute legal marriage.
The man who then consorted with a deficient girl or with
a woman of inferior race would come to understand the sig-
nificance of his conduct, and would automaticlly be re-
strained by public opinion and his own self-respect from per-

The Standardization of Sexual Conduct 185

petrating the most heinous of all crimes against posterity.
In case the father of a child born out of wedlock were
already married the man should be held guilty of bigamy
and be prosecuted accordingly by the state, and the same
law should operate in the case of the woman. Under such
a law illegitimacy would be reduced to a minimum and the
state would be held responsible, as it should be, for securing
the registration of both male and female progenitors.

Procedure of this sort would be less of an innovation than
might at first appear, for in many countries customs similar
to this are already in operation, and during the recent
war large numbers of men were forced by the government
to marry girls whom they had rendered pregnant. More-
over, it would not operate unjustly toward the man, for
he would merely be held responsible by the state for the
results of his own conduct, and he would be free to extricate
himself through divorce from an uncongenial relationship
by making adequate provision for his child.

The chief purpose of thus standardizing sexual con-
duct is to provide the state with some practical means
for differentiating between the use and the abuse of the
sexual function, so far as the race is concerned. So long
as the state presumes to adjudicate love its behests cannot
by rational human beings be respected or obeyed. The
power of sexual choice must be left to the individual and
to him alone. It is not, however, officious for the state to
require that the relationship should be registered, that the
responsibilities which it entails should be assumed, nor would
any man who truly loved a woman resent publicly admit-
ting that she was his mate. With this standard formally
enacted into law, the state could logically proceed against
all those who indulged in prostitution or who otherwise
sought to gratify their base sexual impulses at the cost
of racial progress. Fornication would be recognized in its
true proportions as an offense against the racial life, and

186 The Laws of Sex

the heretofore valid excuse that marriage denied freedom
for true love could no longer be offered by those guilty of
adultery.

In order to make manifest the magnitude of the offense
of fornication, penalization proportionate to the racial re-
sults of such conduct must be instituted. The individual
must understand in terms of his own comfort and conve-
nience the significance of clandestine sex adventures. The
fact that illegitimacy, prostitution and venereal disease flow
from promiscuous sexual relationships must be epitomized
in the form of law before the inexperienced and young will
learn in time that the true road to sexual happiness lies
through love and chastity, and not through sensuous and
transitory relations between the sexes.

CHAPTER Vin

THE VENEREAL DISEASES

While no reliable statistics with regard to the incidence
of venereal disease in America are available, it is estimated
by genito-urinary specialists of wide experience that of
young unmarried men fully 60 per cent have or have had
gonorrhoea, and that from 10 to 15 per cent contract
syphilis. Morrow estimates that 60 per cent and For-
scheimer that 51 per cent of the adult male population of
the United States have gonorrhoea.1

Statistics compiled by Dr. George Walker, Colonel in
the United States Army, show that in the American Ex-
peditionary Forces the percentage of venereal disease
among the troops was about 12 to 13 per cent syphilis, 37
per cent chancroid and 51 per cent gonorrhoea. A table pre-
pared by Col. P. M. Ashburn and published in the Journal
of the American Medical Association, May 8, 1920, shows
that among the United States troops from 1903 to 1915 the
percentages of the three diseases in the totals of venereal
disease reported were approximately gonorrhoea 60 per cent,
chancroid 18 per cent, and syphilis 20 per cent.

Among 2000 case histories in the public and private
wards of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Hooker found
that 49.9 per cent of the male patients gave a past history of
gonorrhoea and that 10.9 per cent gave a past history of
syphilis. The patients were not connected with the genito-
urinary department, but were admitted to the general medi-
cal and surgical service. The incidence of venereal disease
as shown by the past histories was higher in the private

1 Cabot's Modern Urology.

187

188 The Laws of Sex

than in the public wards, confirming Dr. Blaschko's findings
that venereal disease is more frequent among the higher than
among the lower classes of men.

When it is realized that a large majority of these men
subsequently marry, many of them with an uncured disease,
that they contaminate their wives and even transmit their
malady to their offspring, the enormity of the results be-
comes apparent.

It is the association of these diseases with marriage that
gives them their paramount social significance, for they
attack life at its root, and contribute largely to sterility
and racial deterioration. In women, gonorrhoea is the
common cause of sterility, while syphilis leads to miscar-
riage, still-born and defective children. Gonorrhoea is re-
sponsible for at least 80 per cent of the cases of sterility, and
many fruitless marriages which were formerly supposed to
be attributable to sterility in the wife, are now explained
by induced sterility in the husband.2

According to Noeggerath and Neisser, about 50 per cent
of sterility in women is caused by gonorrhoea, while Williams
states that 73 per cent of all abortions are caused by endo-
metritis and cervicitis. Pregnancy offers a signal opportu-
nity for the growth of the gonococcus, with the result that
after parturition or abortion, the disease which had formerly
maintained a benign course then acquires a new virulence,
leading in some cases to the death of the patient and more
frequently to her permanent sterility. The "one child
sterility" which is so often encountered is in most instances
due to gonorrhoea. In addition to its fatal effect upon the
offspring the social significance of the gonococcus is still
further enhanced by its capacity for conferring blindness
upon the newly born. During the act of parturition, the
gonococci which are present in the maternal discharges,
invade the eyes of the infant and by setting up a purulent
conjunctivitis lead to permanent blindness in one or both
'Ernest Finger. Blennorrhcea of the Sexual Organs.

The Venereal Diseases 189

eyes. It is estimated that approximately 30 per cent of all
blindness is gonorrhoeic in origin.

The figures of Dr. Keyes, cited in his treatise on
syphilis, indicate the importance of this disease in the prob-
lem of race culture. "Among 43 women innocently infected
with syphilis in matrimony, and who bore children after
said infection, only 2, think of it ! only 2 escaped bearing
at least one syphilitic child, and this exception is fully com-
pensated for by 3 who, before realizing that they had
this disease themselves, infected a child whom they had
previously brought into the world healthy.3 Of the in-
fecting 41

23 bore 1 syphilitic child (or fetus) of whom 5 bore healthy children

8 " <2 " children " " 6 " "

4 " 3 " " M " 2 «• «* "

2 " 4 " " u « a « « M

3 " 5 " " and no others

1 " 8 " " and 6 healthy ones

Total 41 bore 86."

The heartbreaking tragedies that are mutely attested by
these statistics indicate to how large a degree the innocent
pay the price for venereal infection. This point should
be clearly borne in mind by any student of venereal pro-
phylaxis, for the venereal diseases themselves are not neces-
sarily in any given case evidence of licentious conduct.
Dr. Morrow has said that there is more venereal disease
among virtuous married women than among the women of
the streets, and it is beyond question true that unborn in-
fants pay the highest death toll of all as a result of venereal
infection. Before the true nature of the venereal diseases
was understood it was popularly supposed that immorality
in itself sufficed to produce these maladies. Science, how-
ever, has proven that syphilis can arise only from syphilis,

•Edward L. Keyes. Syphilit.

190 The Laws of Sex

gonorrhoea from gonorrhoea, and chancroid from contact
with the Ducrey bacillus. The guilt or innocence of the in-
dividual concerned bears no relation to the infecting or-
ganism.

The history of the venereal diseases is still more or less
debatable ground. It is generally admitted that gonorrhoea
and chancroid existed in Europe in the earliest days of
antiquity, but while some authors maintain that syphilis
originated in prehistoric times in the Eastern Hemisphere,
the weight of testimony seems to be with those who look
upon syphilis as a disease of comparatively modern times.

Bloch insists that the first syphilitic bones date from
after the time of the discovery of America, and he believes
that syphilis was first introduced into Spain in the years
1493-94 by the crew of Columbus, who brought it from
Central America, especially from the Island of Hayti.4
Almost all authorities agree that modern syphilis was first
recognized in the last decade of the fifteenth century, be-
ginning among the soldiers of Charles VIII, King of France,
in his campaign against Naples. At this time it assumed
the form of a veritable epidemic, and after the army was
disbanded it was carried by the soldiers to the other coun-
tries of Europe, and was soon transported, presumably by
the Portuguese, to the Far East.

Until the time of Philipp Ricord (1800-1899) the three
venereal diseases, syphilis, gonorrhoea and chancroid, were
regarded as essentially one disease. During the years
1830-1850, Ricord established the diversity of syphilis and
gonorrhoea, and later proved that chancroid was not of
syphilitic origin. With Albert Neisser's discovery of the
gonococcus in 1879, the truly scientific study of venereal
disease was begun, and in 1889 to 1892 this was followed
by the discovery of the bacillus of chancroid by Ducrey and
Unna. In 1903, Elie Metschnikoff succeeded in transmitting
syphilis from man to the higher apes, and in 1905, Fritz
4Iwan Bloch. The Sexual Life of Our Time.

The Venereal Diseases 191

Schaudinn demonstrated the Spirochceta pallida in the secre-
tions from syphilitic sores. Following his memorable find-
ings, confirmatory evidence was supplied from all parts of
the world, and today it may safely be said that the
spirochete of Schaudinn bears a directly causal relation to
the disease known as syphilis. The great names associated
with the scientific study of venereal disease are Ricord,
Neisser, Metschnikoff and Schaudinn.

The recognition of the diversity of the three venereal
diseases stimulated investigation as to the specific nature,
consequences and treatment of each infection.

SYPHILIS

Syphilis, the most dreaded of the triad, has long been
known as a disease capable of the most insidious and en-
during results. In the early half of the nineteenth century,
Ricord established the doctrine of the three stages of
syphilis, primary, secondary and tertiary. This doctrine is
still roughly adhered to, though it is now known that the
secondary and tertiary stages of the disease are often not
clearly delimited. In describing the progress of the infec-
tion, it is convenient to follow this classification.

The Mode of Infection

It is generally admitted that in American and European
countries from 90 to 93 per cent of syphilitic infections, ex-
clusive of hereditary syphilis, are of genital origin. The dis-
ease may also be transmitted by contacts of other sorts, as,
for example, by kissing, using a glass, pipe, handkerchief or
other article used by a syphilitic person, or through suck-
ling when the disease is present, either in the infant or the
nurse. In some parts of Russia and Turkey on the con-
trary, it is stated that as many as 50 to 60 per cent of all in-
fections occur independently of sexual intercourse. Syphilis
is not contagious except through surface lesions, and dur-
ing the later stages of the disease is usually not contagious

192 The Lams of Sex

at all. The mucous membranes of the mouth and genitalia
are the most ardent sources of infection, and these lesions
in early untreated cases are always found to be swarming
with spirochetes. The mucous patches which appear upon
the lining of the mouth and tongue are particularly viru-
lent and occasion the great majority of extra genital in-
fections. It is commonly conceded that syphilitic secretions
cease to be infectious after 12 to 24 hours and much sooner,
probably within six hours, when dry.

One of the great merits of prompt treatment by Salvarsan
is that it renders the superficial lesions sterile and thereby
checks the spread of the disease.

Primary Symptoms

The onset of syphilis in men and in women is in most in-
stances markedly different. In the man from two to five
weeks after exposure, the disease usually first evidences
itself as a small pimple upon the glans penis or the fore-
skin. This grows rapidly, is usually ulcerated on the
surface, and becomes continually harder at the base. The
pus which it secretes is extremely infectious. This sore is
called the "hard chancre" or "primary lesion," and since it
causes very little discomfort the patient may neglect con-
sulting a physician. Within one or two weeks the virus
spreads to the inguinal lymph glands and these appear as
painless indurated nodes. After three or four weeks the
ulceration gradually heals over, leaving a hard, character-
istic lump, but the glands do not disappear. Two or three
months from the time of infection the first systemic
symptoms appear. Lymph glands in other parts of the
body become swollen, the patient complains of fever and
a general feeling of malaise, his bones ache and he begins
to lose in weight. He may suffer from pains in the joints
and muscles and from severe headaches.

In women the initial stage of the disease may be prac-
tically absent. The primary sore is frequently so slight

The Venereal Diseases 193

as to escape notice, and until two or three months after
infection, the patient considers herself entirely well. Then
she may suffer from excrutiating pains in her bones or in
her head and exhibit a low fever. Following this, general
toxemia, characteristic skin lesions and mucous patches
may appear, but in many cases these are absent. Repeated
miscarriages or the birth of syphilitic children may be the
only evidence of the disease. It was doubtless these atypical
cases, that gave rise to the erroneous belief embodied in
Colics' law that a non-syphilitic mother could give birth to
a syphilitic child to whose infection she alone was immune.

Secondary Lesions

If treatment has been instituted early in the course of
the disease, secondary symptoms may never appear, al-
though in many cases both the primary and secondary
symptoms are wholly overlooked. Acute toxemia and cer-
tain local lesions which are not destructive in character
and which tend to spontaneous healing mark this stage of
the disease. The skin eruptions are peculiarly character-
istic, especially the "roseola syphilitica" which appears first
on the trunk in the form of rose-colored spots and which
spreads thence over the whole body. Nodules may appear
in the skin and thickened patches in the mucous membranes.
The hair may fall out in a characteristic patchy way, and
the palms of the hand and the soles of the feet may exhibit
peculiar thickenings, "syphilitic psoriasis." The mouth
and throat are filled with mucous papules and erosions which
are extremely infectious.

In addition to the superficial lesions, the deeper organs
of the body are affected, and a wide variety of symptoms
may appear. Jaundice marks involvement of the liver, and
excruciating headaches may result from the toxemia. The
nails may become the seat of inflammatory processes, and
in a large proportion of the cases a superficial inflamma-
tion of the bones, causing severe pain, sets in. Deafness

194 The Laws of Sex

may occur and laryngitis, and in rare cases epididymitis.
Iritis, which frequently causes permanent impairment of
vision, is sometimes seen. It is said that 60 per cent of all
cases of inflammation of the iris are syphilitic in origin.
Nephritis occasionally occurs.

In well treated cases, relapses are often avoided, espe-
cially after the first year. As time passes from the date
of the infection, the danger of recrudescence becomes con-
tinually less.

The duration of the secondary symptoms is more a
matter of text books than of facts, for they are sometimes
met with as long as five or even ten years after the chancre.
In the great majority of cases, however, secondary symp-
toms cease to recur after the third year. The infectious-
ness of the secondary lesions is indubitable, though the
danger is chiefly restricted to lesions of the mucous mem-
branes. In late infections the disease is often transmitted
through a kiss. A case cited by Dr. Keyes illustrates this
circumstance.

Case XV III. "Chancre in 1871 followed by secondary
symptoms of skin and mouth. Treatment for four years.
He marries in 1876. The first child is born and remains
clean to his twenty-sixth year. Shortly after the birth of
their child the father becomes an inveterate smoker, and
soon his tongue shows syphilitic erosions. Warned on
several occasions of the danger to which these lesions ex-
posed his wife, he nevertheless continues to smoke and the
erosions multiply. At last in 1880 the expected happens:
the wife develops chancre of the lower lip, followed by
secondary lesions. Being pregnant sh£ aborts and later
bears two syphilitic children."

The comparatively slight infectiousness of these later
lesions is here well indicated, for it is not until the ninth

The Venereal Diseases 195

year of the disease, after innumerable exposures, that the
wife contracts the disease.

Tertiary Lesions

From the third to the tenth year of the disease in untreated
cases, new morbid symptoms begin to appear. These are
differentiated from the secondary lesions by their tendency
to spread and become diffused and by their disinclination to
spontaneous healing. They often form large masses of
scar tissue with a central tendency to caseation which are
known as "gummata" and which are absolutely character-
istic of the disease. These may appear in the brain, the
liver, the lungs or, indeed, in any organ. They frequently
cause extreme disfigurement for example, perforation of
the hard palate or sinking of the bridge of the nose
(syphilitic "saddle nose") and they may cause death.

Cirrhosis of the liver may occur, as well as involvement
of the intestines, lungs, testicles and blood vessels. Arterio-
sclerosis is often associated with syphilis. Apoplectic
strokes in the young, paralysis, deafness and blindness are
often referable to syphilitic disease.

Sir William Osier has said that syphilis may counter-
feit almost any known disease, and this is more peculiarly
true in the tertiary stage of the malady.

Late Manifestations

Long after the cessation of active symptoms, evidences
of disease of the central nervous system may appear. These
constitute the so-called "quaternary stage of syphilis,"
locomotor ataxia and general paresis being the conditions
most frequently encountered.

The chronic syphilitic infection gives rise to degenerative
changes in the essential nervous tissues, and permanent un-
alterable changes set it. Treatment in these cases is at best
palliative, as the symptoms depend upon the actual destruc-

196 The Laws of Sex

tion of the tissues. The parasyphilids are peculiarly char-
acterized by their incurability.

The case of a young man who contracted syphilis some
five years ago, illustrates the nature of these lesions. The
patient had an uncommon horror of the disease, and in-
sisted upon being treated long after all symptoms had dis-
appeared. He was thoroughly treated according to the
most approved methods, and conscientiously obeyed the
restrictions which his physician put upon him. After al-
most four years of constant treatment, he was finally per-
suaded to consider himself cured, and he unwillingly left
the hands of his adviser. He had showed a negative Wasser-
mann a very long time before he was discharged. Some six
months later he noticed difficulty in vision and upon ex-
amination atrophy of the optic nerve was discovered. He
is now rapidly going blind, still shows a systemic Wasser-
mann, but a positive Wassermann with the spinal fluid.

The parasyphilids are legion. They may affect the nails,
the skin, the hair or the general health of the patient.
Fournier would also include certain cases of glycosuria and
epilepsy, as well as arterio-sclerosis with its matchless power
of causing changes in any organ. The chief parasyphilids,
however, are tabes dorsalis or locomotor ataxia, paresis,
or general paralysis of the insane ; and Erb's spastic spinal
paralysis. These affections are characterized by their fre-
quency, their fatality, their incurability, and their almost
constant association with syphilis.

They are among the most terrible and overwhelming dis-
eases that afflict mankind, and through their incurable char-
acter have doubtless contributed much to the deep horror
in which syphilis is popularly held. Occurring long years
after the patient had supposed himself cured, occasioning
almost unthinkable pain, as in the gastric or laryngeal
crises of tabes, culminating in paralysis or in a revolting
form of dementia and finally leading to death, they epitomize
with cruel distinctness the truth that Nature never forgets.

The Venereal Diseases 197

In the statistics presented by Dr. Keyes, tabes occurred
in about four per cent of the cases of syphilis ; paresis about
one-third as often.

Hereditary Syphilis

Syphilis is the only disease known to humanity as being
definitely hereditary. The transmission of syphilis to the
child by inheritance may be effected either by the father
or the mother. According to Fournier, paternal heredity
gives rise to 67 per cent syphilitic children, of whom 28
per cent die ; maternal heredity causes 84 per cent syphilitic
children, of whom 68 per cent die; while mixed heredity
(both parents syphilitic) produces 92 per cent syphilitic
children, of whom 68.5 per cent die. Later researches in-
dicate that a syphilitic child has probably never been born
of a non-syphilitic mother, for through the placenta the
spirochetes have ready access to the maternal circulation,
and it is impossible to believe that under such circumstances
the mother should not become contaminated. The danger
of transmitting syphilis to the offspring is at its maximum
during the first year of the disease, and subsequently dimin-
ishes until after the third year, when the danger is compara-
tively slight. Cases are on record, however, where the dis-
ease has appeared in the offspring ten, fifteen and even
twenty years after the original infection in the parents.
Hochsinger classifies hereditary syphilis as follows:

1. Foetal Syphilis, which is fatal in about one-half the
cases.

2. Infantile Syphilis (from three to six months), which
destroys about one-third of the infected children.

3. Relapses in Infancy (until the fifth year), which are
less frequent and less severe than in the early months.

4. Late Hereditary Syphilis, which occurs after the fifth
year and differs in no respect from tertiary syphilis in
the adult. This probably never occurs after the twenty-
fifth year.

198 The Laws of Sex

5. Stigmata of Hereditary Syphilis. Foetal syphilis dif-
fers from syphilis in the adult chiefly in the extreme acute-
ness of the disease, and in the comparatively wide diffusion
of the morbid processes in the various organs ; the lungs,
liver, kidney, spleen and bones are the organs most fre-
quently involved, the skin remaining immune until shortly
before or after birth. The syphilitic or "anaemic" placenta
is extremely characteristic, and shows wide infiltration with
connective tissue. It is heavier than normal and more
voluminous. Abortion usually takes place during the later
months of pregnancy, from the fourth to the seventh month,
and the death of the foetus is usually due to impaired nutri-
tion resultant from degenerative changes in the viscera.

When the child is born alive, it may at first present no
superficial evidences of the disease, but in a certain pro-
portion of cases the picture is unmistakable. The typical
syphilitic infant sums up within its wizened, prematurely
aged body all the horrors of the disease. Its eyes are sunken
and inflamed, its skin is loose and wrinkled and may show
repulsive sores, its hands and feet are claw-like. It is piti-
fully thin and feeble, and constantly utters a peculiarly
hoarse cry. It is restless and shows great difficulty in
breathing and can hardly nurse at all. These children usu-
ally die soon after birth, and, strange as it may seem, the
mother mourns them with normal grief. In the great ma-
jority of cases, no such striking picture is seen. The
child may be of average weight with no skin lesions and
no evidence of visceral disease. After a few days snuf-
fles develops, followed by characteristic skin eruptions, of
which pemphigus is the most ominous. Great purulent vesi-
cles appear, which break down forming green scabs, and
though usually located upon the palms of the hands and
soles of the feet, they may spread to other regions of
the body. The diffuse muculo-papular syphilid may involve
very extensive areas. In the genital creases and on the

The Venereal Diseases 199

flexor surfaces of the joints, the skin may become almost
completely eroded.

Lesions of the mucous membranes occur about the lips
and in the anal and genital regions. Small mucous papules
appear, especially at the angles of the mouth; they become
eroded and fissured, forming deep, red, oozing cracks, which
are extremely painful and interfere with suckling. The
radiating scars which result are among the most reliable
stigmata.

The nails are claw-like and are often undermined by an
inflammatory process, so that they can be readily detached.

The bone lesions are characteristic, resulting in late years
in the "sabre blade" tibia, which is most frequently asso-
ciated with rickets. In early syphilis, lesions of the skull,
sometimes resulting in hydrocephalus, are most frequent.

Enlargement of the liver and spleen are seen in about
40 per cent of the cases, and in still-born children sclerosis
of the testicle is extremely common.

After infancy, relapses are most liable to occur in the
first and second year, the sixth to the eighth year, and
from the time of puberty until the early twenties. Epi-
lepsy, hemiplegia and optic neuritis are common at this
time. Among the later cases the lesions are practically
identical with those of tertiary syphilis. Interstitial kera-
titis, resulting in a corneal scar which frequently destroys
or impairs vision, is especially characteristic.

Among the stigmata of congenital syphilis, Hutchinson's
triad is important. This consists of (1) notched or pegged
upper permanent incisors; (2) corneal scars, iritic adhe-
sions or ocular palsies, and (3) "nerve" deafness, which
occurs in young persons with great suddenness, rendering
them totally deaf within a few hours in one or very rarely
in both ears.

Permanent debility, arrest of development, various mal-
formations of the nose, ear and palate, deaf mutism, "in-

200 The Laws of Sex

fantilism" or idiocy, and epilepsy are some of the other
disastrous results of congenital syphilis.

Treatment of Syphilis

In the very great majority of cases, syphilis, if treated
early, is an absolutely curable disease. The gravest dan-
ger to the patient lies in his neglect of treatment after
the subsidence of the early symptoms. Treatment to be
effective should be continued systematically for two, and
in some cases, for three or more years, and any relapse
should be very promptly reported to the physician. Ow-
ing to the extreme danger of hereditary syphilis, procrea-
tion should be strictly prohibited for both men and women
for at least two years from the onset of the disease.

The routine treatment of syphilis consists of repeated
doses of Salvarsan or iodids, alternating with the adminis-
tration of mercury by mouth, by inunction or intra-mus-
cularly. This intensive treatment is continued for one year,
after which it is somewhat relaxed, and by the end of the
second year the patient is usually free of the disease. One
great advantage of the prompt treatment by Salvarsan is
that it destroys the spirochetes in the superficial lesions
and obviates the danger of infection.

The treatment in congenital syphilis is precisely similar
to that in the acquired form. Keyes and Morrow both ad-
vise against the marriage of syphilitic persons within five
years of the onset of the disease, during which period all
symptoms shall have been absent for at least two years.

The Wassermann blood serum test is of considerable value
in assuring the absence of the disease, although it is not
by any means always reliable.

Upon the general hygiene of the patient depends much
of the success of treatment. Addiction to alcohol predis-
poses to relapses of varying intensity. By insistence upon
these factors, the nurse can do much to fortify the efforts
of the physician, and she can do even more by urging the

The Venereal Diseaset 201

patient to continue treatment until he is dismissed by the
physician. The disappearance of early symptoms too often
leads the patient to suppose himself cured, and by insisting
upon the necessity of thorough treatment the nurse may
in a certain number of cases save the man and his family
the overwhelming tragedy of locomotor ataxia, paresis or
of relapses in later years.

CHANCROID

Despite the similarity of name, chancroid is in no way
related to the chancre of syphilis. The misleading termi-
nology dates back to the time when the diversity of the
venereal diseases was not understood. Chancroid, or "soft
chancre," is a purely local lesion and never gives rise to
a general infection. It is extremely contagious and is
especially characterized by its tendency to autoinoculation.
The specific character of chancroid was established in
1889 when Ducrey demonstrated the causative micro-organ-
ism. The strepto-bacillus of Ducrey is dumb-bell shaped,
constricted in the centre and with square or rounded ends.
It is invariably present in every case of chancroid.

This disease is especially a disease of filth, and is met with
much more frequently in dispensary than in private prac-
tice. It is preeminently a disease of men, and may be
conveyed from one man to another by a woman who tempo-
rarily harbors the strepto-bacillus in her vagina, but who
is not herself infected. It is in almost every case trans-
mitted through the sexual act, but it may be conveyed by
the hands or by any other means of contact. It is proba-
ble that inoculation does not take place unless the skin
is eroded. Chancroid confers no immunity upon the pa-
tient and lends itself readily to auto-inoculation.

Symptoms

From one to five days after exposure a small pustule
forms at the site of inoculation. This soon bursts and

202 The Laws of Sex

breaks down, forming a deeply hollowed ulcer with under-
mined or inverted edges. The limits of the ulcer are very
sharp, giving the appearance of its having been cut out
by a sharp punch. It is surrounded by an inflammatory
area which is non-indurated in contradistinction to the hard
indurated border of the syphilitic chancre.

In the male it commonly appears in the coronary sulcus,
especially in the little pocket on each side of the frenum.
In women the sores generally occur on the external gene-
talia. The base of the ulcer is greenish yellow, and from
it exudes an abundant purulent secretion which is extremely
infectious and which soon gives rise to multiple sores. These
may heal spontaneously within from four to six weeks, but
in most cases the patient is forced to report for treat-
ment.

The complications in chancroid are usually due to a
mixed infection with pyogenic bacteria. Destruction of the
frenum with consequent preputial scar is the most frequent
and perhaps the most characteristic of these.

Inflammatory phimosis occasionally results and may set
up a virulent inflammation leading to abscess or gangrene,
Phagedenic or gangrenous chancroid is now much less fre-
quent than in the days preceding the era of antisepsis, but
even now occasional infections are so severe that parts of
the penis may slough within from 36 to 48 hours, and
chancroidal bubo may form a very obstinate ulcer involv-
ing extensive areas. The serpiginous ulcer which creeps
obdurately forward sometimes taxes the skill of the physi-
cian.

"Bubo" occurs in about one-third of the cases. This
constitutes an invasion of the inguinal lymph glands, com-
monly on the side upon which the sore lies, but sometimes
bilaterally. The glands become inflamed and markedly swol-
len, and may be extremely painful. Within a week or so
the glands may gradually be resolved, or they may become
matted together and go on to suppuration. The so-called

The Venereal Diseases

"virulent bubo" is marked by the formation of a chancroidal
ulcer at the point of incision, the pus from which is auto-
inoculable.

Treatment

The chief point to be borne in mind in treating chancroid
is its possible association with an additional syphilitic in-
fection. The same exposure that caused chancroid may
have sufficed to inoculate the patient with syphilis as well,
and it is to the highest degree important not to overlook
the graver disease in treating the comparatively benign
malady. Chancroid may conceal the original chancre and
so mislead the physician.

If chancroid is seen within three days of its inception,
the ulcer or ulcers should be thoroughly cauterized. Ar-
gyrol crystals are an effective measure. Extreme cleanliness
is of absolute importance, and the ulcers should be covered
with bichloride dressings, or dusted with calomel. For the
prevention of bubo, rest in bed with cold compresses is
often effective.

In the case of the complications of chancroid, surgical
interference is frequently necessary. The use of the actual
cautery, under a general anaesthetic, is the best method
of checking the course of gangrenous chancroid. The dan-
ger of infection to the physician or the nurse is practically
nil, as soap and water afford a sufficient prophylaxis.

GONORRHOEA

With the discovery of the gonococcus by Albert Neisser
,ID 1879, a veritable revolution took place in the opinion in
which gonorrhoea was held. Previous to that time gonor-
rhoea had been considered a relatively unimportant disease,
often causing no more concern than a cold in the head,
but the demonstration of the gonococcus quickly led to a
reversal of this idea, and it is now known that gonorrhoea
is one of the most serious diseases that afflict mankind. Prior

204 The Laws of Sex

to the discovery of the specific organism, gonorrhoea had
been regarded as a disease of significance chiefly in the
male, for its more obscure manifestations in the female
were unrecognized as being associated with the disease. To-
day, however, it is common knowledge that gonorrhoea en-
tails far graver consequences to women than to men, that
it is,. indeed, as Sir William Osier has said, the most seri-
ous of all diseases so far as women are concerned. Its
extreme prevalence among young unmarried men, and its
long period of infectivity, render it of paramount impor-
tance as a menace to marriage, and its matchless power of
causing sterility places it far above all other human mala-
dies in racial significance. It is estimated that of every
1000 young unmarried men, fully 600 have contracted
gonorrhoea, and since a large proportion of these men
marry before their disease is cured, the contamination of
the wife in wedlock is of extremely common occurrence. The
pessimistic Noegerath states that 80 per cent of married
women are affected with latent gonorrhoea, while Sanger
found that of all women, married and single, coming to his
clinic, 12 per cent had this disease. In the absence of
reliable statistics, it is impossible to tell the percentage of
marital infection, but gynecologists are almost unanimous
in declaring that fully 75 per cent of the major operations
performed upon the generative organs of married women
are occasioned by gonorrhoea, contracted from their hus-
bands. When it is realized that a large proportion of
these operations result in the complete sterility of the
woman, the racial significance of gonorrhoea becomes appar-
ent. The effect of gonorrhoea upon domestic happiness is
also of untold moment, for it insidiously undermines the
general health of the wife, and transforms her from a
natively happy, healthy human being into a querulous in-
valid. Many of the feminine ailments that were formerly
supposed to be intrinsic in sex, are now known to be due
to gonorrhoea. Without doubt the lives of these women

The Venereal Diseases 205

present the most bitter tragedies of modern days, broken
in health -and spirit, bereft of children, finally, in many
instances, robbed even of the love of their husbands, they
drag out their days in misery of mind and body, and
find solace only in death. Gonorrhoea is perhaps of all the
venereal diseases the one most truly deserving of the name,
for it is transmitted in the great preponderance of cases
through sexual intercourse. The eye infections and the
vulvo-vaginitis of infants and young girls contribute prac-
tically the only cases of non-venereal transmission.

Extra Genital Infections

Ophthalmia neonatorum, or blindness of the newly born,
is in practically all cases of gonorrhoeal origin. It is esti-
mated that about 30 per cent of the cases of total blind-
ness result from gonorrhoeal infection of the eyes at the
time of birth. Gonorrhoeal conjunctivitis is extremely rare
among adults, in contrast to the widespread prevalance of
acute urethritis, and since the average patient has little
respect for asepsis, it must be inferred that the adult con-
junctiva is in the main amply resistant to the gonococcus,
as otherwise the patient would succeed far more frequently
than he does in transferring the infection by his hands to
his eyes. Too many cases are on record, however, where
nurses or physicians have lost their vision in the course
of treating a gonorrhoeal case. The patient and his family
should always be warned of the danger, and the hands should
be scrupulously cleansed after attending a patient suffering
with the disease. When only one eye is involved, the great-
est care should be used in preventing the contamination of
the other.

Gonorrhoeal conjunctivitis or purulent conjunctivitis,
either in the infant or the adult, begins as a violent inflam-
mation of the conjunctiva, characterized by great swelling
of the lids, serous infiltration of the bulbar conjunctiva
and the free secretion of contagious pus. The symptoms

206 The Laws of Sex

appear within from twelve to forty-eight hours after inocu-
lation, progress with startling rapidity and soon threaten
the vitality of the cornea. Unless the disease can be checked,
ulcers form, and these may perforate, forming an adherent
scar. In some cases the entire cornea is involved and the
scar bulges forward, forming a protruding cicatrix. In
virulent cases, all the tissues of the eyeball may be in-
volved, resulting in atrophy of the bulb.

After about ten days the process reaches its height, and
then gradually subsides during the following six or eight
weeks. It may, however, pass on to chronic inflammation.
Partial or total blindness and a ghastly disfiguration mark
the path of the disease.

Since Crede's discovery of the effect of silver nitrate
solution introduced into the eyes of the newly born, gonor-
rhffial conjunctivitis has diminished greatly in frequency.
Nitrate of silver is also used in treating the disease in
the adult. Cold is a most useful agent, and the conjunctival
sac may be irrigated with weak solutions of bichloride or
protargol.

Even with the most assiduous care, blindness or serious
impairment of vision frequently results.

Vubvo-vagvrtitis

Within recent years an epidemic form of gonorrhoeal vagi-
nitis among infant girls has been observed in hospitals and
foundling asylums. The method of contagion is unknown;
it spreads with great celerity from one little patient to an-
other, and it is sometimes necessary to close the institution
before the epidemic can be checked. Infant girls may also
acquire the disease from the mother at birth or shortly
afterwards, and among older children it can often be traced
to criminal practices. Unsanitary toilet facilities in schools
or elsewhere occasionally serve to transmit the disease to
young girls. The symptoms are pronounced and severe. A
free purulent discharge, which is often blood stained, comes

The Venereal Diseases 207

from the urethra, the vagina and vulva. The mucous sur-
faces are greatly swollen and bleed readily, and there is
often great pain in passing water and a marked and per-
sistent fever. Severe abdominal pain is frequently present.
Gonorrhoeal joints and meningitis occasionally form compli-
cations, and cases of general septicaemia with a fatal termi-
nation have been reported. The local conditions do not
respond readily to treatment, and sterility and chronic
invalidism in later life sometimes result. The prognosis
is, however, relatively good. The danger to the eyes in
these cases is very significant and every precaution should
be used to prevent the child from transferring the infec-
tion by her hands. The little patient should be put to
bed and the vagina irrigated, first by a hot solution of
bichloride or protargol. Ultimate recovery may, to a great
extent, depend upon the general health of the child.

Gonorrhoea vn Adults

Gonorrhaa is a specific contagious disease caused by the
gonococcus of Neisser and characterized by inflammation
of the mucous membranes of the genito-urinary tract. The
normal shape of the gonococcus is that of the double coffee
bean. The gonococci are arranged in pairs or groups of
four, and in the acute stage are seen enclosed in leucocytes.
In the chronic cases they are frequently extra-cellular.

The symptoms of gonorrhoea may be divided into three
groups, accordingly as they owe their origin: (1) To the
local infection; (£) to the extension of the disease from
the local lesion to the adjacent parts, and (3) to the
development of a systemic intoxication; of the symptoms
those belonging to the third group are most rare.

The difference in the manifestations of the disease in
men and in women is due to the dissimilarity of anatomical
structure in the male and female generative organs. This
is further enhanced by the fact that inoculation in the
male usually takes place in the arterior urethra, while in

208 The Laws of Sea:

the female the virus is commonly deposited in the region
of the cervix uteri.

Gonorrhoea in the Male

In the male gonorrhoea usually begins from two to five
days after exposure, as an acute inflammation of the an-
terior urethra. In exceptional cases there may be an imme-
diate involvement of the posterior urethra or even of the
epididymis. Pain is experienced on micturition, redness of
the urethral orifice is observed, and this is soon followed
by the discharge of a thick fluid which is at first mucous,
but which later becomes purulent. In addition to the local
symptoms, some cases show a slight fever, lassitude and
mental depression.

Violent, painful erections, especially at night, may tor-
ment the patient. Within three weeks the symptoms usu-
ally become less severe, and from the fourth to the sixth
week the discharge may cease, and all gross evidence of
the disease disappear. In the great majority of cases,
however, the subsidence of the symptoms does not indicate
recovery; instead, it merely marks the commencement of
the chronic stage of the disease. The gonococci begin to
proliferate in the deeper tissues, and to ascend toward the
posterior urethra, and inflammation of the bladder, the
prostate or the epididymis may follow. In about 50 per
cent of the cases of bilateral epididymitis, complete sterility
results. Relative impotence and severe sexual neursesthenia
sometimes result from chronic gonorrhoea. One of the most
distressing sequelae of gonorrhoeal urethritis is stricture of
the urethra. In pronounced cases, retention of the urine
may result, leading to severe cystitis and later to a purulent
infection of the kidneys. Occasionally rupture of the ure-
thra occurs with entravasation of urine, which may termi-
nate fatally if radical surgical measures are not carried
out.

A marked characteristic of this chronic gonorrhoea is

The Venereal Diseases 209

the length of duration of infectivity. Cases are on record
where the infection was transmitted from ten to twelve years
after the patient had supposed himself cured. The disease
may become walled off in small submucous abscesses and in
typical "gonococcus carriers," even upon urethroscopy, no
pathological picture is presented. It is these cases that
constitute the gravest menace to marriage, for the absence
of all symptoms convinces the patient and frequently the
physician that all danger is past. The important class
of latent gonorrhoea due to prostatic lesions is also of great
importance in marital contamination.

Treatment

It is of the greatest importance that patients suffering
with gonorrhoea should come under proper treatment as
early as possible in the course of the disease. While many
of the cases yield readily to treatment, some show an ex-
traordinary obstinacy and proceed to complications, not-
withstanding the most painstaking efforts on the part of
the physician. This is more especially the case with viru-
lent gonorrhoea, which is often observed in alcoholics or
in young men who have used irritating injections in the
hope of avoiding the disease. In acute urethritis the treat-
ment consists first of the injection of weak solutions of
the silver salts in the urethra at frequent intervals. Salol
and balsams may be given to render the urine bland. Under
proper instruction the patient may conduct part of the
treatment for himself, but he should report to the physician
at least twice a week or oftener if he is so advised. Later,
irrigation with a weak solution of permanganate is usually
recommended.

Localized lesions may be treated by the direct application
of silver nitrate. Posterior urethritis is also treated by
irrigation, and in long standing cases massage of the pros-
tate is frequently beneficial. Acute epididymitis calls for
rest in bed and the administration of cold compresses. If

210 The Laws of Sex

abscesses form, recourse must be had to the knife. Pros-
tatic lesions also frequently demand surgical aid. The ma-
jority of strictures may be corrected by gradual dilatation,
though in occasional cases prompt surgical intervention is
necessary.

As in syphilis, the general hygiene of the patient is of
great moment in effecting a cure, and sexual relations and
the use of alcohol are absolutely contraindicated. Relapses
frequently result from infringement of a strict regimen.
Protection of the affected part from undue irritation is
essential, and for this purpose a suspensory bandage is
usually worn. The patient should be cautioned to cleanse
his hands thoroughly after exposure to the virus, partly
for the protection of his own eyes, and partly for the pro-
tection of his associates. He should, of course, sleep alone,
use his own towel, etc., and in the family little girls espe-
cially should be guarded against contamination. If the
ordinary rules of cleanliness are carefully regarded, there
is comparatively little danger that the infection will spread.
The clothes of the patient, particularly those bearing any
evidence of the discharge, should be disinfected and washed
apart from the household laundry.

In the Army and Navy prophylactic measures are re-
quired. The men in the service are ordered to report for
treatment at the prophylactic station within a few hours
of exposure and a urethral injection of 5 per cent argyrol
is administered. The proportion of cases in which this
measure affords protection is not accurately known, and it
is open to the same objection that obtains in the case of
prophylaxis for syphilis, in that it places the government
in the anomalous position of sanctioning illicit sex rela-
tionships.

Gonorrhaa in Women

In the preliminary stages of the disease, gonorriwea in
women often excites such slight symptoms that the patient

The Venereal Disease*

fails to consult a physician until some of the more seri-
ous complications set in. Owing to the physiology of
coitus, the point of inoculation is usually different in the
two sexes. As has been seen the anterior urethra in the
male is commonly first involved, whereas in the female the
disease is generally first localized in the mucosa of the
cervix uteri.

From this point the infection may spread, either in a
descending or, what is more generally the case, in an ascend-
ing direction. Except in young children, vaginitis is com-
paratively rare, but auto-infection of the urethra from the
vaginal discharge is not infrequent. When the mucosa of
the urethra is involved the patient notices pain on urina-
tion and the presence of a thick, purulent discharge. Cysti-
tis and an ascending infection of the kidneys may also
intervene. Since endometritis is usually coexistant with the
urethritis, the patient often explains her symptoms for a
time as being merely associated with some irregularity in
the menses. Meanwhile, the infection ascends through the
uterus to the tubes, and marked constitutional symptoms,
such as mental depression and fever appear. There are,
in addition, severe pains in the uterine region, which are
aggravated at the menstrual periods, and a bloody, puru-
lent, vaginal discharge may be almost constantly present.
The pus may accumulate in the tubes, causing pyosalpinx,
and a local or general peritonitis may result. Perimetritis
and ovaritis are frequent complications.

In the great majority of cases in married women, when
the disease has been contracted from a chronic gonorrhea
in the husband, the course of the disease is typically torpid
and slow. The mucosa of the cervix does not afford so
ready a cultural field for the gonococcus as does that of
the urethra, and until pregnancy takes place the infec-
tion may remain more or less localized. At the menstrual
periods, however, the infection is usually accelerated, and
it has been observed that the contagiousness of the dis-

212 The Laws of Sex

ease in women bears a direct relation to the menses. Pa-
tients who fail to show gonococci at ordinary times, may
do so shortly before or immediately after the monthly
periods.

The effect of conception in these subacute cases is very
profound, especially if the patient goes to term. In the
course of the pregnancy the disease, hitherto passive, takes
on a more virulent character, the gonococci proliferate
abundantly in the more profuse secretions, and after deliv-
ery the maternal organs afford an incomparable cultural
field. The result is that after the birth of the first child
the disease assumes such proportions that the life of the
patient may be endangered or her health permanently under-
mined. Extension of the disease to the tubes and ovaries
is exceedingly frequent, and usually calls for operative in-
terference which may lead to complete sterility. Abor-
tion, which, in contradistinction to syphilis, usually takes
place during the first two or three months of pregnancy,
also exerts a disastrous effect upon the health of the pa-
tient. Frequently the first clinical signs of gonorrhrea make
their appearance shortly after conception. Recent work
indicates that abortion in these cases is usually due to
malimplantation of the ovum, resultant from the inflam-
mat6ry condition of the mucosa, the uterus and the tubes.
Human monsters, which embryological investigation has
shown to be associated with malnutrition, probably owe
their origin to the same cause. Tubal pregnancy is also
very commonly associated with gonorrhoea.

The effect of this chronic infection upon the general health
and character of the patient is exceedingly profound. She
becomes unfit for work of any kind, nervous hysterical and
subject to periods of great mental depression. She ac-
quires a horror of sexual relations, although she may fre-
quently yearn for the children she can never have. Often
after operation these symptoms clear up to a considerable
extent.

The Venereal Diseases

•

Treatment

Gonorrhoea in women, even more than in men, is char-
acterized by its extreme obstinacy to cure. It has been
well said that when a patient contracts gonorrhoea, human
knowledge is insufficient to tell whether she ever will be
cured.

Acute urethritis in the female is treated in much the
same manner as in the male, by the administration of salol
and balsams, and by local irrigations. The prognosis is
much more favorable in women than in men. The treat-
ment of ascending infections is unsatisfactory and the prog-
nosis must be guarded, as after the subsidence of the acute
symptoms the disease tends to linger indefinitely. In cervi-
cal endometritis, the vagina should first be cleansed by irri-
gation with a hot 1 to 2,000 bichloride solution. The
cervix is then exposed and the mucous secretions removed
by means of cotton tampons ; after this the diseased sur-
face is touched with silver nitrate or iodine. Finally, curet-
ting and packing with iodoform gauze may be resorted to
if the inflammation does not subside.

In acute endometritis, the patient should be put to bed
and should receive no direct treatment until the acute symp-
toms have disappeared. When the chronic stage is reached,
the uterine cavity should be thoroughly irrigated with a hot
bichloride solution every two days. If the disease still
persists, the uterus may be thoroughly curetted, swabbed
with a 10 per cent solution of zinc chloride and packed
with iodoform gauze. If the disease has extended to the
tubes, ovaries, peritoneum or parametrium, hot vaginal
douches or sitz baths may afford relief. When the purulent
secretions have become sufficiently localized, operative inter-
ference is indicated.

Systemic Gonorrhceal Infections

In a small proportion of the cases of gonorrhoea in
both men and women, the gonococci gain access to the blood

214 . The Laws of Sex

stream and become lodged in the joints, tendons, bursse, en-
docardium, pericardium or meninges. Cases of general septi-
caemia with fatal termination have been reported in adults.
Gonorrhceal rheumatism is the most common of these com-
plications, and usually appears a considerable time after
the initial infection. Its onset is usually sudden and is
characterized by swelling, pain, tenderness and redness of
the affected joint. The knee, elbow, ankle, wrist and sterno-
clavicular joints are those most commonly involved. The
pain in these cases is severe, and there is moderate fever.
After a few days the acute symptoms sometimes subside
and complete resolution may follow; ordinarily, however,
the swelling, tenderness and pain continue for weeks or
even months, and partial or complete stiffness of the joint
results. Suppuration is rare, but if it occurs the joint
almost invariably becomes ankylosed. A diagnosis in these
cases is sometimes exceedingly difficult, owing to the close
resemblance} to ordinary rheumatism.

Success in the treatment of these cases depends in large
measure upon the cure of the local lesion. In the acute
stage, rest in bed with the application of cold packs to
fhe affected joint is the best therapeutic measure. As the
symptoms subside, a pressure bandage may be applied and
massage is beneficial. Persistent large effusions must be
drained and irrigated, and in suppurative cases, surgical
intervention is imperative.

CHAPTER IX

FALLACIES OF THE PRESENT METHODS OF
CONTROL

Of all the present problems of preventive medicine that
involving the venereal diseases would to the unprejudiced
mind appear to be the simplest of solution. In the first
place, their etiology is definitely known, and in the second
place they are commonly spread by direct contact through
voluntary acts. The objectives of the preventive medici-
nist in all other classes of communicable disease are already
fulfilled in venereal disease; their causative organisms and
their mode of transmission are known, and the means of
preventing contacts between infected and non-infected per-
sons is obvious., and is especially adapted to a good system
of quarantine. If like circumstances obtained in regard
to scarlet fever, influenza or any other communicable dis-
ease, the hygienist would consider the problem practically
solved, yet the medical profession today stands impotent
to check the spread of syphilis and gonorrhoea.

Why is this so? The reason is not far to seek. In in-
fluenza, scarlet fever or any other communicable disease,
the hygienist avails himself of the information at hand,
and adapts his program of prevention to simple hygienic
principles, but in venereal disease he is confused by the
relation of morals to the problem, and he adapts his pro-
•gram to men's convenience rather than to rational princi-
ples of hygiene. If the causative organism of scarlet fever
had been isolated, and if it were known to be transmitted
through the medium of an intimate voluntary contact, as
by a kiss, the medical profession could reasonably anticipate

215

216 The Laws of Sex

eradicating this disease from the race within a very brief
period of time. The procedure followed would be simple
in the extreme. Patients sick of scarlet fever would be iso-
lated and non-infected persons would be ordered not under
any circumstances to kiss them ; meanwhile the patient would
be placed under curative treatment. In a few years scarlet
fever would obviously disappear.

The situation in regard to venereal disease is precisely
parallel. Its causative organisms have been isolated, it is
known to be transmitted through the medium of an intimate
voluntary contact, sexual intercourse, yet the medical pro-
fession holds up its hands and shakes its head. It can
do nothing. Why? For three reasons. First, because its
mind is fettered by dead tradition, which accepts exposure
to venereal disease carriers as inevitable; second, because it
is a commercialized profession, and the self-interest of the
practitioner is opposed to a sane system of venereal disease
quarantine; and third, because doctors are in the main
mere men after all, and their own personal experience leads
them to favor or at least tolerate male sexual promiscuity.
The medical student, whose morals are notorious, is not far
removed from his more adult sire.

The program which is now advanced by the medical pro-
fession for the control of venereal disease appears in all
its true absurdity when translated to the suppositious case
of scarlet fever. Suppose instead of quarantining all cases
of the disease and denying non-infected persons the right
to kiss infectious patients, only such persons as were ar-
rested for or convicted of illicit kissing were to be exam-
ined and isolated if found to be diseased. Suppose, further,
that of the two partners, the males were the ones more
addicted to osculation, so much so that ordinarily they
paid in money or goods for the privilege of embracing an
infected female. To follow the plan now put forward by
the medical profession for the control of venereal disease,
these males woujd ordinarily merely be held as the state's

Fallacies of the Present Methods of Control 217

witnesses against the female, and would be released with full
permission to continue their campaign of bribery as soon
as the case had been tried in the police court. To com-
plete the present program facilities for curative treatment
would have to be offered, but the patients reporting for
treatment would not be quarantined, nor would their inti-
mate associates, their wives or children, be in any way
warned, unless the patient refused to report regularly to
his physician.

What in the supposititious case would be the result? If
kissing were a sufficiently popular pastime, the knowledge of
the causative organism of scarlet fever and its mode of
transmission would be thrown away, and scarlet fever would
continue to spread, in spite of the "control'* measures of
the "hygienists," just as syphilis and gonorrhoea are now
doing.

The truth is that quarantine means nothing when it is
applied in this fatuous way, and the false "control" meas-
ures which are now advanced by the United States Public
Health Service, the State Boards of Health and the Ameri-
can Social Hygiene Association serve only to conceal from
public resentment the unthinkable neglect of the medical
profession in refusing to protect the public health from this
most devastating of all plagues. There is absolutely no
excuse, in face of the knowledge that is now available, for the
medical profession's delaying longer in instituting a rational
program of quarantine against venereal disease. The diffi-
culty is that medical men refuse to regard the problem from
an hygienic viewpoint. They will not, without great ex-
ternal compulsion, place the campaign on the basis of the
control of communicable disease where it belongs. They
think in terms of morals, instead of preventive medicine, and
while they disregard secrecy when necessary in connection
with all other communicable diseases, in venereal disease,
habit and their own base self-interest leads them to utilize
every subterfuge in protecting the "good name*' of their

218 The Laws of Sex

well-paying, high-class male patients, in total disregard of
the public health.

But the price of their silence is too terrible for the public
to endure. Little children born blind, doomed from their
birth never to see the blessed light of day, innocent brides
in the full flower of their young womanhood maimed for
life or committed to their graves, young minds tainted with
the hideous blight of syphilis, the idiot, the epileptic; these
all stand as a tragic monument to the knowledge that was
never used. Desolate homes, where little children have only
been born but to die, broken-hearted mothers who have
gone to the edge of the pit and have brought back death
instead of life, families whose name has perished in the
womb; all of these tragedies will one day be placed where
they belong.

The medical profession may shrug its shoulders and at-
tempt to transfer its responsibility to the public or the
police; the fact remains that the contamination of wedlock
by the most terrible of all racial diseases rests as a direct
responsibility upon the shoulders of medical men and can-
not be dislodged. Medical men have now within their own
hands all the power and knowledge necessary to protect
marriage against venereal disease. That they refuse to do
so is a sin beyond measure, a crime that in its clear con-
sequences is unequalled in the annals of the race.

For thirty pieces of silver, Judas Iscariot sold his master
to the cross. Today his counterpart in the medical pro-
fession secretly sells little children to be crucified. He will
not report his cases of venereal disease, lest forsooth they
reach the knowledge of those who might become contami-
nated. He will not violate the professional secret, though
he willingly enough does so in measles or chicken pox, for
fear he should break up a home. Let him regard a home
broken by syphilis or gonorrhoea, let him stand by and see
the bloody agony of the woman giving birth to a still-born,
syphilitic child, let him look into the purulent eyes of the

Fallacies of the Present Methods of Control 219

infant victim of ophthalmia neonatorum, and then let him
ask himself whether his base self-interest is not daily break-
ing up homes. Let him follow the hearse of the bride who
with his sanction but lately stood before the altar of God
and whom his knowledge might have spared, and let him
ask the desolate husband how he views his conduct. Today,
yesterday, tomorrow, years without end the silent train of
women and children, each bearing a cross, has passed and
now passes with noiseless tread by the physician's door, and
he heeds them not at all. A little fictitious verbiage, a few
printed solecisms, a make-believe quarantine, these are suf-
ficient sops to his conscience. He takes his thirty pieces
of silver and builds up a remunerative practice on "lues"
and "tripper," drawing close the shutters of his mind. Oh,
Hippocrates, what has thy calling come to, that thy disci-
ples should thus traffic in the mortal agony of their fellow-
men !

Yet perhaps after all there are some few extenuating
circumstances. Medical men have themselves grown up
under a double standard of sex hygiene. They cannot find
it in their consciences to demand a better standard of liv-
ing from their fellows than they have themselves lived up
to in the past, and according to their own estimates most
of them have, at least before marriage, exposed themselves
to venereal disease carriers. It used even to be taught in
a certain Baltimore medical school by one of the professors
that a man was not fitted to practice medicine until he
had had gonorrhoea. Under such tutelage a man could
scarcely be blamed for tolerating the contact of infected
with uninfected venereal persons.

Even within recent years so excellent a gentleman and
so eminent a clinician as the late Sir William Osier taught
his classes that syphilis and gonorrhoea should never be
referred to among the laity by their proper names. "Lues"
and "tripper" were the preferred synonyms. It is an intrin-
sic part of medical ethics today that wives who have been

220 The Laws of Sex

venereally contaminated by their husbands shall not be
told the true nature of their malady. If such a pernicious
and unhygienic system of medical secrecy existed in con-
nection with smallpox or measles, the results to the com-
munity may be readily imagined, and yet syphilis and gonor-
rhea are equally dangerous communicable diseases. Sir
William Osier said, and he spoke out of a wide experience,
that gonorrhrea is the most serious of all diseases so far as
women are concerned, and yet no rational effort has been
made by the medical profession to protect innocent women
in wedlock from this insidious disease.

Strangely enough, too, doctors are precisely those who
see most clearly the ravages of venereal disease among the
innocent, yet they continue to excuse themselves from their
responsibility on the untrue grounds that they are powerless
to prevent marital contamination.

Doubtless one of the factors that has tended to exonerate
medical men in their own eyes is the outworn dogma of
the "sexual necessity." Until within comparatively recent
years it was actually believed by large numbers of men
that chastity might entail impotence or other disasters.
Doctors frequently prescribed the use of prostitutes in nerv-
ous disorders or in obstinate cases of masturbation, and
the legend is still current that a man may rid himself of
syphilis by intercourse with a virgin. Quacks today play
upon the belief in the sexual necessity and endanger the
health of their victims by foul advice. There is, however,
no longer any valid argument on this score. Reputable
medical men are practically at one in their stated belief
that chastity for both men and women is wholly compati-
ble with health.

On May 7, 1917, after careful consideration, the Gen-
eral Medical Board of the Council of National Defense
declared that "continence is not incompatible with health
and is the best preventive of venereal disease." The prin-

Fallacies of the Present Methods of Control 221

ciple thus laid down was approved by the American Medi-
cal Association on June 7, 1917.

In its war program the United States Government repeat-
edly stressed the fact that continence is not only feasible for
men but is wholesome and desirable. "Keeping Fit to Fight,"
a pamphlet issued for the soldiers by the Commission on
Training Camp Activities, and endorsed by the Surgeon
General, says:

"It used to be thought that these sex organs had to be
used if they were to be kept healthy. This is a lie. If it
were true, the boy who exercises them regularly from child-
hood on should have the greatest sex power — but he is
more likely to be sexually dead before he fully matures.
Sex power is not lost by laying off. The testicles are
not muscles but are glands, small bodies producing a liquid,
just as the tear glands of the eyes produce tears. Real
lost manhood is usually due to disease or long abuse of
the sex organs.

"The mere fact that famous boxers and wrestlers, ex
plorers and athletes who want their bodies in perfect con-
dition for a great struggle keep away from women during
the long period of training proves that the use of the sex
organs is not necessary to health. Even the ancients knew
this in training their gladiators and athletes.

"It is no more necessary to exercise the sex organs than
it is to exercise the tear glands in the eye. Nature takes
care of them until the right time for their use."

Today few reputable medical men in public support the
dogma of the sexual necessity, yet public health officials
still refuse to recommend the enforcement of premarital
chastity as a necessary measure for the prevention of
venereal disease.

They cannot, somehow, bring themselves to disavow men's
age-long prerogative of sexual promiscuity, and all of the
measures that they offer for the control of venereal dis-

222 The Laws of Sex

ease come back substantially to tfce vain hope of the sani-
tation of vice and the repression of prostitution through
the useless hounding of the unfortunate victims of a well-
financed demand. They cannot somatically believe that
men's promiscuous sexual demands can ever to any degree
be brought under control, so they do their best under the
circumstances and suggest a program based upon that un-
thinkable concept, a double standard of sex hygiene. Ow-
ing to the increasing power of women in public life they
have recently become very discreet in their verbiage, and
when they know that in practice their recommendations will
discriminate against the feminine sex, they employ the word
"person," instead of speaking honestly and saying "woman."

As part of its war program, the United States Govern-
ment recommended certain laws designed for the control of
venereal diseases. These were embodied in a pamphlet
"Standard Forms of Laws for the Repression of Prostitu-
tion, the Control of Venereal Diseases, the Establishment
and Management of Reformatories for Women and Girls
(not for men), and Suggestions for a Law Relating to
Feeble-minded Persons (presumably females)."

There are seven of these laws, and they are worthy of
careful consideration, as within the past two years forty-
four states in the Union have adopted a large part of the
program. As Mr. Fosdick, Chairman of the Commission on
Training Camp Activities, charmingly points out in the
preface, they are none of them designed "to protect the
marriage relation," for, says he, "this class (of sex rela-
tions) is quite removed from what is commonly regarded
as prostitution and is very generally covered by existing
statutes in most states." He kindly adds, "though not as
well in some as in others."

The countless women who are daily infected with venereal
disease in wedlock might, perhaps, if they were informed,
not share Mr. Fosdick's optimism. Among these seven laws,

Fallacies of the Present Methods of Control 223

inconspicuously, is included a form law against fornication,
but as it was not included in the working social hygiene
program of the United States Public Health Service nor in
those of any of the local State Boards of Health, it may be
inferred that it was merely added as a sort of decoration.
As has been seen from the summary of statutes, but few
states are equipped with a fornication law, and in none of
them does it receive any practical consideration, least of
all from the medical fraternity.

Without any other exception the laws are clearly directed
toward those who profit from the exploitation of vice and
those "persons," save the mark, who are the victims of
this exploitation. No word of suggestion is made of re-
pressing the demand that alone makes prostitution pos-
sible.

Standard Form Number 4 has been enacted into law, or
where it has been considered in part unconstitutional, has
been rewritten into Board of Health Regulations in forty-
four states of the Union, and it is herewith reprinted in
full, as it represents the sole protection that the public now
enjoys against venereal infection:

FORM NUMBEE 4

Standard Form of Law for the Control of Venereal Diseases

Section I. That syphilis, gonorrhoea and chancroid,
hereinafter designated as venereal diseases are hereby de-
clared to be contagious, infectious, communicable and dan-
gerous to the public health. It shall be unlawful for any-
one infected with these diseases or any of them to expose
another person to infection.

Section II. Any physician or other person who makes a
diagnosis in or treats a case of venereal disease, and any
superintendent or manager of a hospital, dispensary, or
charitable or penal institution in which there is a case of

224 The Laws of Sex

venereal disease, shall make a report of such case to the
health authorities according to such form and manner
as the State Board of Health shall direct.

Section III. State, county and municipal health officers,
or their authorized deputies, within their respective juris-
dictions are hereby directed and empowered, when in their
judgment it is necessary to protect the public health, to
make examinations of persons reasonably suspected of be-
ing infected with venereal disease, and to detain such per-
sons until the results of such examinations are known, to
require persons infected with venereal disease to report for
treatment to a reputable physician and continue treatment
until cured or to submit to treatment provided at public
expense until cured, and, also, when in their judgment it
is necessary to protect the public health, to isolate or quar-
antine persons infected with venereal disease. It shall be
the duty of all local and state health officers to investigate
sources of infection of venereal disease, to cooperate with
the proper officials whose duty it is to enforce laws directed
against prostitution, and otherwise to use every proper
means for the repression of prostitution.

Section IV. All persons who shall be confined or impris-
oned in any state, county, or city prison in the state shall
be examined for and, if infected, treated for venereal dis-
eases by the health authorities or their deputies. The prison
authorities of any state, county, or city prison are directed
to make available to the health authorities such portion of
any state, county, or city prison as may be necessary for
a clinic or hospital wherein all persons who may be con-
fined or imprisoned in any such prison and who are infected
with venereal disease, and all such persons who are suffer-
ing with venereal disease at the time of the expiration of
their terms of imprisonment, and, in case no other suitable
place for isolation or quarantine is available, such other
persons as may be isolated or quarantined under the provi-

Fallacies of the Present Methods of Control 225

sions of Section 8, shall be isolated and treated at public
expense until cured, or, in lieu of such isolation any of
such persons may, in the discretion of the Board of Health,
be required to report for treatment to a licensed physician,
or submit to treatment provided at public expense, as pro-
vided in Section 3. Nothing herein contained shall be con-
strued to interfere with the service of any sentence imposed
by a court as a punishment for the commission of crime/

Section V. The State Board of Health is hereby empow-
ered and directed to make such rules and regulations as
shall in its judgment be necessary for the carrying out of
the provisions of this Act, including rules and regulations
providing for the control and treatment of persons isolated
or quarantined under the provisions of Section 3, and such
other rules and regulations, not in conflict with provisions
of this Act, concerning the control of venereal diseases, and
concerning the care, treatment and quarantine of persons
infected therewith, as it may from time to time deem advisa-
ble. All such rules and regulations so made shall be of
force and binding upon all county and municipal health
officers and other persons affected by this Act, and shall
have the force and effect of law.

Section VI. Any person who shall violate any of the
provisions of this Act or any lawful rule or regulation made
by the State Board of Health, pursuant to the authority
herein granted, or who shall fail or refuse to obey any
lawful order issued by any state, county, or municipal
health officer, pursuant to the authority granted in this Act,
shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be pun-
ished by a fine of not more than $1000 or by imprisonment
for not more than a year or by both such fine and imprison-
ment.

Section VII. All laws or parts of laws in conflict with
the provisions of this Act shall be and the same are hereby
repealed.

226 The Laws of Sex

Approved by:

Merritt W. Ireland, Major General, Surgeon General of
the Army.

William C. Braisted, Rear Admiral, Surgeon General of
the Navy.

Rupert Blue, Surgeon General, U. S. Public Health Serv-
ice.

To the uninitiated this law would appear to cover the case,
for it reaffirms the almost boundless power which the State
Boards of Health had, without exception, in connection with
communicable disease, before this law was ever conceived of.
The very fact that it was thought necessary to define this
power so specifically in regard to venereal disease indicates
at the outset the peculiar attitude of the medical pro-
fession toward this one class of infections. No special
form law is needed in connection with measles or influenza
or smallpox. Under the very laws that called them into
existence, the State Boards of Health were vested with suf-
ficient power to protect the public health against communi-
cable disease, if they desired to do so. This is the crux
of the matter, and herein lies the weakness of Form Law
No. 4, for after defining Section 1 the venereal diseases as
"contagious, infectious, communicable and dangerous to the
public health," it weakly commits the handling of these
cases to the "judgment" of the state, county and municipal
health officers, where it was before the law was written.

Even in the matter of reporting cases of venereal dis-
ease, which is obviously fundamental to any system of
quarantine, it says (Section 2), cases shall be reported
"according to such form and manner as the State Board
of Health shall direct." The uselessness of this recommen-
dation becomes clear when it is learned that only eight out
of the forty-eight states require venereal disease cases to
be reported by name and address. All of the others which
require the reporting of cases at all merely demand that

Fallacies of tlie Present Methods of Control

they be reported by number. Of what earthly value re-
porting the cases by number could be it is difficult to under-
stand, for even statistics gleaned from this information
would be worthless, as venereal cases are especially prone
to change from one doctor to another, thus making it
probable that one case would be reported several times,
thereby invalidating the record. No sane physician would
suggest reporting cases of scarlet fever or chicken pox or
typhoid fever by number for the very reason that the re-
ports are called for in order to permit the State Boards
of Health to take over from private physicians the con-
trol of "contagious, infectious, communicable and danger-
ous infections." The public has long since realized that
the private physician has neither the time, the facilities
nor the disposition to carry through an adequate system
of quarantine in connection with communicable disease.

Is it because he has proven so much more conscientious
and efficient in handling cases of venereal disease than in
handling other forms of communicable disease that the pub-
lic health is to be left entirely in his hands in connection
with venereal infections? Reporting by number or other
like fantastic and useless devices is nothing more nor less
than a blind to conceal from the public the neglect of
the medical profession in this most dangerous class of in-
fections. It serves also to appease the conscience of cer-
tain medical men and others who enjoy a pretense of
non-existent progress. Before there can be any thought
of controlling venereal disease or preventing the venereal
contamination of wedlock, all cases of venereal disease must
be required to be reported by name and address as is
done in the case of all other communicable diseases. The
sole argument advanced by those who favor reporting by
number is that doctors "will not report" if they are
required to give the name and address of their patients.
It may be submitted that this plea would scarcely be
countenanced in connection with smallpox, whooping cough

228 The Laws of Sex

or any other dangerous, infectious malady. Clearly doc-
tors should be required to report by name and address,
even if they lose money by so doing, and when they realize
their true responsibility, they may perhaps not prove so
recalcitrant as was at first anticipated.

To be understood, Section 3, which reads innocently
enough, must be interpreted by the use made of it by the
public health officials. In all of the states where it has
been put in force, it operates merely as a sort of Neo-
Napoleonic regulation. The "persons" who are consid-
ered as being "reasonably" suspected of being infected
with venereal disease are, in spite of the careful phrase-
ology, almost always women, and when this coincidence
is brought out, almost all public health officials defend their
action on the ground that women are "more dangerous
as venereal disease carriers" than are their male copart-
ners. No less authorities than Col. C. C. Pierce, who
is at the head of the United States Public Health Service;
Dr. Hugh H. Young, who was in charge of the Urological
Department of the American Expeditionary Forces, and Dr.
William H. Welch, President of the School of Hygiene
of the Johns Hopkins University, maintain that it is
more important to hold the infectious woman than the
infectious man, for they maintain "one woman can in a
single night infect many men whereas one man can infect
only a very small number of women."

Granting that the available funds are limited, as they
most certainly are, these gentlemen and their confreres con-
tend that they should be expended in the most effective
manner, but then unhappily what do they do? They pro-
ceed to lay out a large part of their inadequate budget
on paying for the board and lodging, for long periods of
time, of a handful of girls, many of them of subnormal
mentality, who, they admit, will almost certainly become
reinfected within a day or so after their half year's im-
prisonment or "quarantine" is ended. It is like pouring

Fallacies of the Present Methods of Control 289

water through a sieve, and has absolutely no bearing upon
the problem. In all probability it is money worse than
wasted, for while these few girls are withdrawn from the
trade the demand remains at the same level and the induc-
tion of new girls into the ranks of prostitution or the
increased abuse of those already initiated is beyond ques-
tion predicated.

It all comes back to the ultra-masculine point of view
on the social evil wherein the woman is always considered
the chief offender. Dr. Young has even gone so far as
to say that women are always the prime instigators to
illicit sex relationships. "Women cause the spread of
syphilis and gonorrhoea," he said not long since to the
writer. "A young man goes out on the street with no
evil thoughts in his head. He is met by a vicious woman.
She caresses him and entices him until he falls, and then
she infects him with syphilis or gonorrhoea. If the infec-
tious woman can be locked up it stands to reason that
our boys will be safer by that increment."

Dr. Young and many of his confreres frankly support
Section 3 on the ground that it gives an additional "pre-
text" for arresting and detaining dissolute women. "Lock
up as many of them as you can," Dr. Young said, "the
streets will be just that much safer." Over a hundred
years ago when the lock hospital treatment of diseased
prostitutes was first instituted this was the philosophy that
guided the plans of the medical profession. During an
entire century it has been found to be of not the slightest
avail in controlling venereal infection, yet round and round
the shut cages of their minds the reason of medical men
still dashes, like squirrels in a wheel, bent upon some mo-
mentous enterprise. In 1921, they are repeating the dem-
onstrated errors of 1802, and they do not even know it.

The difficulty is that they will not and cannot mentally
face the problem. They are attempting to reconcile two
irreconcilables, to facilitate sexual promiscuity for men

230 The Laws of Sex

while denying it to women ; to repress prostitution while
permitting men to pay sufficiently to insure its continued
unabated existence. At one moment they preach chastity
and monogamy and at another they lay careful plans for
the sanitation of vice through lock hospitals and the use
of prophylaxis. Apparently they believe in both marriage
and promiscuity, one for women and the other for men,
and they overlook the trifling fact that sexual intercourse
is a relation which necessarily involves equally a man and
a woman. In this connection it is enlightening to consider
what is the fundamental basis of prostitution.

It is a trade which like any other responds to certain
laws, and which is ultimately dependent for its very exist-
ence upon its being adequately financed by those who call
it into being. Those who exploit the prostitute, the pimp,
the procurer, the taxi-cab driver, the real estate shark,
the madam and even the girl herself would not find prosti-
tution profitable enough to afford a livelihood if men were
not willing to pay enormous sums for the purpose of illicit
sexual gratification. It is estimated by the American So-
cial Hygiene Association that $164,000,000, and probably
three or four times that amount is paid annually by men
in the United States for prostitution. If this sum were
for any reason withdrawn, if men suddenly became un-
willing to pay for prostitution, it is clear that the whole
business would fall asunder and that pimps, procurers,
madams, prostitutes and the rest would have to look to
other means for gaining a living.

No similar institution exists for the opposite sex, for
women are ordinarily unwilling to pay men for sexual
gratification outside marriage. This is not necessarily due
to any lack of genuine passion in the female, it merely
means that such a procedure would bring women out on
the wrong side of the ledger. The concept is exaggerated,
but it indicates beyond question that where no financial

Fallacies of the Present Methods of Control 231

demand exists for the prostitution of the opposite sex, no
such institution is even imaginable.

The relation of men and women to the problem can be
very clearly and conclusively shown by a simple example
in arithmetic. To bring the concept within range, suppose
there are five men and five women on the street on a given
night. If each of the men desires sexual intercourse and is
able and willing to pay $1, all of the five women being
available, the net result is five illicit relationships, and $5
paid into the treasury of prostitution. If only four women
or only three or only two, or indeed but one are availa-
ble, the net result is the same, for one woman has been
known to gratify as many as thirty men in twenty-four
hours, so five illicit relationships and $5 paid to the income
of prostitution is the constant result throughout the series.

It is only when the last of the five women has been
eliminated that the number of illicit relationships falls,
and then pending the advent of new women it necessarily
drops to zero.

Now consider the problem in relation to the men. Sup-
pose the five women are constantly available, but for some
reason one of the five men declines the opportunity for
illicit intercourse, the other four being still desirous. The
net result is four illicit relationships and $4 paid into
the treasury of prostitution. Similarly, if but three of
the five men desire illicit relations, all of the five women
being still available, only three illicit relationships result,
and but $3 is paid into the treasury of prostitution. If
but two of the men are desirous, the woman factor re-
maining constant, only two illicit relationships result, and
only $2 is thrown to the income of prostitution. Finally, if
only one man desires gratification, only one illicit inter-
course results and $1 is paid into the treasury of prosti-
tution. Meanwhile a certain proportion of the women who
were living in venery are forced to turn elsewhere for a

232 The Laws of Sex

means to a livelihood. This example demonstrates suffi-
ciently the clear fact that the number of illicit relation-
ships, in other words the number of exposures to venereal
disease, depends upon the male, not the female factor in
the enterprise. Unless the medical profession anticipates
achieving the impossible, it can scarcely expect to reduce
the number of available prostitutes to zero, especially in
view of the fact that men are openly permitted by the
government to bribe women adequately to give them grati-
fication.

Another suppositious case may add definition to the prob-
lem. Suppose, for a moment, that a man ardently desires-
that the home of a neighbor be burned to the ground. He
pays a woman to commit arson, and after the house is
burned she is arrested and locked up by the police. The
house is rebuilt, and he immediately engages another woman
for the same task; the house is again burned, and she
is taken up, and so on ad infinitum. As long as the man's
desire and money hold out arson will be inevitable, for
there is no occupation so dangerous that people cannot
be found to engage in it if the financial reward is set suffi-
ciently high. The obvious procedure in a case of this sort
would be for the government to penalize the man offering
the bribes sufficiently heavily to undercut his desire. Arson
would then cease and not before.

Now a precisely analogous situation exists with regard
to prostitution. A girl who can make only ten or twelve
dollars a week in a legitimate occupation can make two or
three hundred dollars a week through prostitution. From
a financial point of view it is worth running some risks to
secure the greater wage.

A police captain in Baltimore City said recently, in speak-
ing of the difficulty of keeping disorderly houses closed
down: "If we set a gallows just outside the door and said
to the Madam and her girls, 'You will be hanged there
in the morning if you don't behave yourselves,' they'd go

Fallacies of the Present Methods of Control 233

on just the same and take the men and the money and
trust to luck to get away before we caught 'em."

In earlier days prostitutes were really hanged, or their
noses or ears were cut off, or other mutilations were in-
flicted, but the trade was not affected. In some cases they
were publicly ducked in a cage until they were almost
drowned, or were forced to wear a certain garb, or a scarlet
letter, but these cruelties did not result in the repression
of prostitution.

On the contrary, the trade has flourished and promises
to continue to do so until the real source of the evil is
brought under the ban of the public conscience. Until
within comparatively recent time, the facts with regard to
the percentile infectiousness of public women were not
known. Now as a result of various investigations it is
recognized that from 95 to 100 per cent of all prostitutes
are venereal disease carriers. This makes the hope of the
sanitation of vice still more clearly visionary than it was in
the days of Napoleon when it was supposed that only an oc-
casional prostitute harbored venereal infection. The general
infectiousness of prostitutes is recognized by the Public
Health Service and the various State Boards of Health in
their interpretation of Section 3. In "Venereal Disease
Ordinances," issued by the Public Health Service under the
direction of the Surgeon General, it says: "Sec. 9. It is
hereby made the duty of the City Health Officer (a) to make
examinations of persons reasonably suspected of having
syphilis in the infectious stages, or chancroid or gono-
coccus infection (owing to the prevalence of such diseases
among prostitutes, pimps, procurers, persons guilty of lewd
and lascivious conduct and persons who associate with
prostitutes, all such persons shall be considered within the
above class), (b) To quarantine or isolate persons in-
fected with any of said diseases whenever quarantine or
isolation is necessary to protect the public health."

These sections, it will be seen, are the same in substance

234 The Laws of Sex

as Section 3 of Form Law No. 4, wherein health officers or
their authorized deputies are directed and empowered when
m their judgment it is necessary to protect the public
health to make examination of "persons" reasonably sus-
pected of having a venereal disease; to detain such persons
until the results of the examination are known and to
isolate persons infected with venereal disease. In order to
see precisely how the provisions of Section 3 work out in
actual practice, it may be well to review the experience of
one state, Maryland.

In January 1918, certain members of the Commission on
Training Camp Activities had prepared for introduction
into the City Council of Baltimore City, an ordinance pro-
viding for the compulsory physical examination of "persons"
arrested for or convicted of prostitution and the detention
of those found to be diseased. A number of Baltimore women
who had had experience with Clause 79 of the Page Bill
in New York, recognized in this proposed ordinance merely
a reversion to old-fashioned regulation, and entered a vigor-
ous protest against its introduction.1 They stated to the
Commission on Training Camp Activities that they would
promptly have the constitutionality of the ordinance ques-
tioned if it were passed, and the ordinance was quietly with-
drawn. The Commission then transferred its activities to
the State Board of Health, and in July, 1918, a series of
16 venereal disease regulations was promulgated, among
which were the following:

14. Prostitution is hereby declared to be a source and
cause of venereal diseases. Persons living or associating
with prostitutes are declared to be exposed to infection
with venereal diseases and subject to detention, parole or
observation as other persons exposed to other contagious
diseases. Any person convicted by a court of law of being
a prostitute shall be subject to a physical examination by
the local health officer or a physician appointed by the court
1 Decision of Supreme Court of New York. Barone vs. Warden.

Fallacies of the Present Methods of Control 235

to determine whether the condition of that person is such
as will prove dangerous to others, and if so determined
shall be subject to quarantine until declared by the desig-
nated health officer or physican appointed by the court to
be free from danger of infection to others.

16. On account of the frequency of venereal diseases
among vagrants, prostitutes, keepers of houses of ill-fame,
prostitution or assignation, and inmates, employes and
frequenters of such places, persons not of good fame, per-
sons guilty of fornication, lewd and lascivious conduct and
illicit cohabitation, and associates of such persons are
likely to have and are hereby declared reasonably suspected
of having venereal diseases, and when any such person is
arrested on or in connection with any such charges, such
person should not be released on bail or otherwise allowed
liberty of contact with healthy people until examined by the
proper health officer, his deputy or agent, and pronounced
free from venereal disease.

The police justices were then called together, and were
requested by the State Board of Health to send all the
women arrested on charges of immorality and also the
pimps and procurers to the venereal clinic for examination.
They were also directed to hold them without bail until
the results of the examination were known. This was sum-
marily done, for as one of the magistrates said, "While I
regard the procedure as unconstitutional, and while I do
not believe it would stand a test in the courts, we are asked
to do this to protect the health of the soldiers," and it was
war time.

Under these regulations, it appears that approximately
600 women have been subjected to a compulsory physical
examination in Baltimore City within the past two years.
So far as can be learned, less than 50 men have been sub-
jected to the same procedure. About one-half of the women
have been returned to the court with a positive diagnosis.
Of five men representing the sum total of those who in six

236 The Laws of Sex

months were sent from the Central Police Station for ex-
amination, all were returned with a positive diagnosis. One
of them was fined $25 and costs, and the others were re-
leased merely with a warning to report for treatment. A
few of the women who were found to be infectious were con-
fined in a sort of lock hospital ward in the Mercy Hospital,
accommodating about a dozen patients ; a very few others
were sent to Bay View and to the Morrow Hospital. While
detained, the girls were given no opportunities for exercise,
recreation or education, but were shut up together in a
single room in complete idleness for periods in some in-
stances lasting six months or even longer. At the Morrow
Hospital they were permitted to work in the laundry. Some
of the girls ran away, causing the hospital authorities great
embarrassment. The patients ranged in age from 12 or 13
to 20 years ; a few were slightly older.

Of those who could not be accommodated in hospitals,
some were sent to jail, but the majority were committed to
the "Cut," an unsavory, unhygienic penal institution, near
Baltimore City. When asked precisely what method was
used in handling these cases, one of the magistrates, a man
of unusual conscience and ability, replied: "When they
are brought in I send them to the Clinic. If they are
found to be diseased I send them to a hospital, if there is
room and the case is suitable. Otherwise I usually commit
them to the 'Cut' for six months or until they are no longer
infectious." Asked what he did with those who were not
diseased, he replied, "Oh, I generally dismiss them, for there
isn't any evidence." As for the men, he said he seldom
sent any for examination as they were held merely as the
state's witnesses.

Thus it is seen that Section 3, of Form Law No. 4, de-
generated very quickly in Maryland into a sort of police
court regulation of prostitution, the conviction and sentence
of the accused being dependent upon the condition of her

Fallacies of the Present Methods of Control 237

health, which was long ago declared to be unconstitutional
in connection with Clause 79 of the Page Bill.

On a careful reading of Section 16, it appears that the
State Board of Health violates one of the fundamental
rights guaranteed to every citizen under the Constitution.
It provides that any person "arrested on or in connection
with charges of immorality" shall be treated differently
from persons who are not so accused. In other words, it
holds the accused is guilty of the offense with which she is
charged before she is given an opportunity to have the
evidence sifted in a court of law. Ever since the days of
King John every precept of justice has demanded that a
person shall be considered innocent until she is proven guilty
before a court of law, but the State Board of Health
splendidly disregards Magna Charta. It appears to con-
sider the Baltimore City Police clairvoyant and accepts
the accusation of a single policeman as sufficient to justify
the publicity and humiliation attendant upon a compulsory
physical examination. That the police are not, even in
Baltimore City, endowed with this extraordinary vision was
recently demonstrated when a 16-year-old girl, palpably
innocent, was arrested entering a taxicab at about 11
o'clock at night in company with her fiance. The girl
was ordered to report for examination but refused, and
when her case was heard before the magistrate it was im-
mediately dismissed, and the plain clothes man was cen-
sured for having arrested the girl on insufficient evidence.
This regulation has also given ground for much quiet graft
in the police force. Young men sitting in their automobiles
in the park in summer time with their girl friends and en-
joying the evening air, have been threatened by policemen
with the provisions of this regulation, and in order to spare
the girl the unspeakable humiliation of a physical examina-
tion under degrading conditions, the man in the case has
usually been willing to pay what was necessary in order to

288 The Laws of Sex

escape the accusation. One officer was dismissed from the
force for action of this kind.

Since the summer of 1920, the magistrates, realizing the
unconstitutional nature of this regulation, have refused to be
party to it, and the administration of the measure has fallen
wholly into the hands of the police force. When the Mary-
land General Assembly met in 1920, Dr. Hugh H. Young
and a few other gentlemen attempted to have Form Law
No. 4 enacted into law in its entirety. The General As-
sembly refused to pass that portion of the law providing
for the examination and detention of persons convicted of
prostitution on the ground that it was unconstitutional.
The condition of the defendant's health, they maintained,
should not be used to prejudice the court in the imposition
of sentence. That section of the law was stricken out before
the bill was transformed into a statute.

Meanwhile the State Board of Health has continued to
utlize its regulations regardless of the Constitution. Sec-
tion 14 may be seen to be quite as unconstitutional as
Section 16, although on different grounds. "Any person,"
it says, "convicted of being a prostitute, shall be subject
to a physical examination, and shall be subject to quaran-
tine until declared to be free from danger of infection to
others." Now after conviction the court is free to order
the examination of the defendant, either before or after
the imposition of sentence. There is no other choice. If she
is examined before sentence is imposed, and the results of
the examination are made known, the court will presumably
be influenced by the condition of the defendant's health in
the imposition of sentence. Otherwise there would patently
be no object in reporting the diagnosis. If the court is so
influenced, clearly the procedure is unconstitutional, for the
defendant has been convicted of an offense against the law
and must be punished accordingly.2 Venereal disease, de-

' Cf . Decision of the Supreme Court of New York in the case of Barone
vs. Warden.

Fallacies of the Present Methods of Control 239

spite the Board of Health, is not a statutized crime, and is
no more germaine to a sentence than chicken pox would be.
If the examination is made after sentence has been im-
posed the procedure is again questionable, for after the
defendant has paid the penalty exacted, she is at quits with
the state and is exactly on the same plane with every other
individual.

With this difference, however, that she may now properly
be declared to be reasonably suspected of having been ex-
posed, to venereal infection, for the charges of immorality
have been sustained by the court, and immorality is known
to constitute exposure to venereal disease. She cannot,
however, longer be held by the court, for no person can
under the Constitution be held twice for the same offense.
She can merely be instructed to report to the Board of
Health for examination or be paroled in their care. If
upon examination she is found to be diseased, there is no
more justification for quarantining her under detention than
there would have been had she come to the clinic as a volun-
tary patient. Thousands of young unmarried male and
female patients report daily to the Board of Health clinics
for treatment for venereal disease. In most cases they
give a definite history of illicit relationships, yet they are
not summarily placed under detention. On the contrary,
the Boards of Health specifically state that they shall be
detained only if they refuse to report regularly for treat-
ment. Why, then, should the defendant who has paid her
fine and thereby exonerated herself in the eyes of the state
be locked up if infected? Has she not, at least more than
the others, who are equally known to the Board of Health
to have led promiscuous lives, learned her lesson, since she
has suffered the indignity of a trial and a fine? The others
have gone scot free although the physician has the medical
evidence and their own self-given histories in testimony of
their illicit conduct. Surely there is no adequate medical
reason for locking up a woman or a man merely because

240 The Law* of Sex

she or he has been tried by a court of law. It is the fact
of licentiousness, not the court record, that is of medical
interest.

Unless all men and women who are known to have a
venereal disease and who give a history of previous im-
morality are to be impartially detained, to the limit of
hospital and penal facilities, there is no sufficient ground
for incarcerating those who happen to have come to the
clinic through the medium of the courts. Many physicians
recommend the use of prophylaxis, especially to their male
patients who by repeated infections prove that they intend
to continue to lead a promiscuous life, but their lock hos-
pital treatment is not therefore required. Moreover, if it
is assumed that a court record necessarily means that a
woman will continue to live as a prostitute, her temporary
incarceration from a medical point of view avails little, for
as soon as she is cured and is free she will presumably
reenter her old life and immediately become infected again.
Under these circumstances, unless her incarceration pre-
supposes a reduction in the total number of illicit relation-
ships— which is by no means the case — her temporary de-
tention is of no medical avail. It is true that she will be
momentarily cured, if her detention is long enough, but
this will be unavailing in the end as venereal disease confers
no lasting immunity and she will find instant opportunity
for her reinfection upon being set at large.

It is especially to be noted that after sentence has been
imposed there is no constitutional ground for returning a
report as to the condition of defendant's health to the
court. When she has fulfilled her sentence she is no longer
under the jurisdiction of the court and cannot without
violation of constitutional guarantees be held. If she is
to be detained she must be incarcerated by the Board of
Health, not by the court, for the court has no longer any
rights over her.

That the Board of Health regulation providing for the

Fallacies of the Present Methods of Control 241

examination of persons convicted of prostitution and the
detention of those found to be diseased does in practice lead
to unconstitutional procedures, has already been sufficiently
indicated by practical experience.

A typical case is that of a girl brought in and con-
victed of disorderly conduct. The maximum sentence in
Maryland for disorderly conduct is a fine of $25 and costs.
No jail sentence is provided for. The girl is fined $10 and
costs, which she pays, and is then remanded to the State
Board of Health for examination. She is found to have
syphilis in an infectious stage and is returned to the court
with the diagnosis, whereupon she is committed by the court
to six months in the "Cut." A legal mind will immediately
sense the gross violation of justice which such a procedure
entails. The defendant is held twice on the same charge
which is an absolute disregard of the Constitution; she
is sentenced twice for the same statutory offense and finally
she is committed to jail for a long period of time under a
statute which does not provide for any detention. She is,
moreover, held without bail, which is a thing unprecedented
in the so-called minor offenses, for even in capital crimes,
such as rape or murder, the defendant is frequently released
on security.

Dr. Welch, Dr. Young and others in the medical profes-
sion merely shrug their shoulders when these unconstitu-
tional procedures are mentioned as flowing from the State
Board of Health regulations. They assert that the Public
fiealth officials should not be held responsible for the mis-
carriage of justice in the courts. All of which might readily
enough be granted unless the State Board of Health
specifically directed the police and the courts to infringe
justice in this manner, as they do under Regulations 14
and 16.

Several states have already declared it to be uncon-
stitutional to force "persons" arrested for immorality to
submit to a physical examination. They hold that the de-

242 The Law* of Sear

fendant must be considered innocent until he or she has
been proven guilty in a court of law.3 This has entangled
the machinery of the State Boards of Health and embar-
rassed some of their legal advisors, so now Col. William F.
Snow, Executive Secretary of the American Social Hy-
giene Association, and Mr. Bascom Johnson, head of the
Legal Department of the same Association, come forward
with a new and extraordinary suggestion. Instead of hav-
ing the magistrates or the police remand those arrested
for immorality for a physical examination, "persons" held
on charges of this sort are to be brought before the State
Board of Health if they protest their innocence, which body
shall determine whether the evidence is or is not sufficient
to indicate that the defendant may be "reasonably sus-
pected of having a venereal disease," and be therefore sub-
ject to examination. In other words, the State Board of
Health is to constitute itself a sort of unofficial minor
court for the trial of "persons" accused of immorality.
Medical evidence there will be none, for the hearing is
granted prior to examination, so doctors will assume the
prerogatives of the courts of law and momentarily put on
the gowns and wigs of the legal profession. It would be
almost worth trying this fantastic experiment to see what
kind of justice would be rendered, if human rights were not
at stake and if the outcome were not so certain.

Doctors are neither by training nor education fitted to
practice law, nor have they any license for this profession,
but since the police and the courts under these regulations
have been transformed into health wardens, it is perhaps
but right for the doctors to reciprocate by changing them-
selves into lawyers and juries, thereby reducing the whole
procedure ad absurdum.

When a committee of women recently waited upon the
Board to urge the repeal of these unconstitutional regu-

* Cf ., case of Wragg vs. Griffin, 170 Northwestern Reporter, folio 400,
State of Iowa.

Fallacies of the Present Methods of Control 243

lations, and their substitution by a sane venereal disease
quarantine procedure, it was interesting to see how com-
pletely ignorant the members of the State Board of Health
were of the practical operation in the police courts of their
regulations. The members of the Board did not know
how many persons had been held under the regulations,
what was the proportion of women to men, where the patient-
prisoners had been confined or how long, or what legal
procedure was actually followed. They did not know what
percentage of those examined were found to be infected.
Although the magistrates had for six months refused to
remand persons for examination, and the whole thing had
fallen into the hands of the police, the State Board of
Health was unaware of this circumstance. Some of them
thought that only convicted persons were examined, others
maintained that it was essential that all those arrested be
investigated. None of them appeared to have any sincere
respect for constitutional guarantees or to understand
what an excruciating humiliation a compulsory physical
examination could be to an innocent girl falsely arrested.
They all of them had their hearts fixed on the sanitation
of vice by the police courts, and they obstinately blamed the
administrators of the law for the necessary infringement
of justice.4

When it was suggested that the demand created by men
for prostitution was the cause of venereal contacts and the
root of venereal disease, Dr. William H. Welch, the Presi-
dent of the Board and probably the most distinguished
hygienist in America replied : "It would of course be impos-
sible to bring the sexual demands of men under control ; such
a recommendation is purely hypothetical. The problem is
too vast to be approachable by this method. We must look
to the elimination of foci of infection for progress, and not

* Since going to press the Attorney General of Maryland has ruled
Sections 14 and 16 of the Venereal Disease Regulations of the Maryland
State Board of Health to be unconstitutional.

244 The Laws of Sea:

be over-optimistic about repressing extra-marital sex re-
lations."

This represents in brief the attitude of the medical pro-
fession at the present day as phrased by one of its lead-
ing exponents. Sexual promiscuity for men must be taken
for granted and all plans for the prevention of venereal
disease must operate in conformity with this initial prin-
ciple. The promiscuous sexual demands of men cannot be
brought under control ; in other words, unless the sanitation
of vice is accomplished, the human race must look forward
to an endless number of exposures to venereal disease with
the consequent infection.

CHAPTER X

NEO-NAPOLEONIC REGULATION

In order to clarify the argument with regard to the police
court examination of persons arrested for or convicted of
prostitution, it may be well to recapitulate. The pro-
ponents of this method justify their plan on two grounds:
(a) That persons arrested for or convicted of prostitution
are in all likelihod diseased and will presumably expose
other persons to infection if they are not isolated; and (b)
that for their own sakes they should be cured.

The opponents of this method respond: (a) That the
treatment under detention of patients not actually requir-
ing hospital care is neither justifiable nor economically
feasible, except in such cases as fail to report for ambula-
tory treatment or otherwise infringe the regulations of
the Board of Health; (The routine examination and treat-
ment of the inmates of state and federal institutions is,
of course, recommended.) (b) that persons arrested for
immorality may be falsely accused and have a constitu-
tional right to a trial by law before being discriminated
against; (c) that persons convicted of prostitution should
be sentenced without regard to the condition of their
health, a point in law which has been upheld by the Supreme
Court of New York (see Supreme Court decision Barone
vs. Warden) ; (d) that writes s the Board of Health is pre-
pared to isolate impartially all persons known by physicians
to have been immoral, men and women, rich and poor, when
they are found to have a venereal disease in an infectious
form, it is irrational to lock up persons of similar history
and character merely because they have a court record;

245

246 The Laws of Sex

(e) that regulations for the control of communicable dis-
ease must apply impartially to all members of the com-
munity alike, irrespective of social station or sex — e.g.,
regulations regarding smallpox, scarlet fever, tuberculosis,
etc.

The compulsory examination of persons arrested for im-
morality has already been declared unconstitutional by the
courts (cf. Wragg vs. Griffin, 170 Northwestern Reporter,
folio 400). The defendant in this case was a man who was
released on a writ of habeas corpus on the grounds first
that he had not had a trial by law to justify the charges,
and second that a person cannot under the Constitution
be forced to testify against himself by exposing the body
for examination or permitting the withdrawal of blood from
the veins for a medical test.

To a fair-minded person it is clear that a person must
be regarded as innocent until he has been proven guilty,
and that the examination of persons merely charged with
immorality violates a fundamental principle of justice. No
woman would be safe on the streets if she could be forced
to undergo an examination for venereal disease on the ac-
cusation of a single policeman without recourse to a trial
by law.

Until after examination, to refuse to release prisoners
on bail pending trial simply because they are charged with
immorality is equally unconstitutional and unjustifiable, for
until their guilt has been substantiated by due process of
law there is no proper ground for discriminating against
them. While it is granted beyond question that the Board
of Health must have the power to examine any person
reasonably suspected of having any communicable disease
in an infectious form, this is a very different matter from
granting the same right on a basis of unsubstantiated
criminal conduct. The mere fact that a person is suspected
of immorality does not under the law convict her of the

Nee-Napoleonic Regulation

offense with which she is charged, but the Board of Health
bases its right to examine on the fact of immorality, not
on the accusation of misconduct. It is prostitution itself *
not the accusation of prostitution, that gives ground for
the suspicion of the presence of venereal disease.

For this reason the fact of immorality must be established
before the Board of Health can assert that the individual
is reasonably suspected of having a venereal disease, and
this fact cannot be established without due process of law.

The proponents of this plan claim, however, that persons
arrested on charges of immorality are in so large a pro-
portion of the cases guilty, that the accusation alone is
sufficient to justify an examination. But they should recall
that constitutional guarantees are not merely idle per-
quisites and that justice cannot safely be abrogated under
the doctrine that might makes right. Any person of sta-
tion and resources can escape this examination on con-
stitutional grounds, as in the case of Wragg vs. Griffin or
Barone vs. Warden, and it has been proven by over a cen-
tury's experience that the violation of the rights of the
class of persons called prostitutes is inefficacious in checking
the spread of venereal disease.

In the control of all other classes of communicable dis-
ease, quarantine is administered impartially; all persons,
rich or poor, male or female, are equally liable to quaran-
tine and even detention if they are known to have smallpox,
diphtheria or scarlet fever. No one class is discriminated
against, but in venereal disease persons who come volun-
tarily to the clinic and are found to be infectious are not
detained, whereas if these same persons come to the clinic
via the police court their detention is supposed to be neces-
sary. For example, if Mary Smith, who is feeling ill, is
walking along the street on a given night and happens to
stop in at a clinic, where she is found to have syphilis in an
infectious form, she is released after the diagnosis and is

248 The Laws of Sex

merely ordered to report regularly for treatment. Even if
she gives a history of illicit intercourse and is unmarried, she
is not detained.

But if the same Mary Smith on the same night had hap-
pened to be arrested before she reached the clinic and had
been sent for examination by the court, she would be sum-
marily detained for treatment until she was no longer in-
fectious.

The anomalous nature of a similar case in connection with
any other class of communicable disease may be readily
detected.

It would clearly be an unwarrantable procedure for the
Board of Health to pick up people on the street at random
and examine them for communicable disease. Adequate
grounds for supposing them to have been exposed to in-
fection must first be established. While a certain propor-
tion of those who are accused of immorality are probably
guilty of misconduct, it cannot be supposed that all are
guilty, for otherwise a trial by law would not be necessary
for their conviction, and it is impossible before the evidence
has been sifted to determine which are the guilty ones.
Knowingly to override the constitutional rights of any
group of individuals is indefensible unless such a procedure
can be shown to be essential to the conservation of the
racial health. It is on this point that the proponents of the
police court examination of persons charged with or con-
victed of immorality take their stand.

They admit that it is economically impossible to incar-
cerate at public expense all of the men and women known
to have a venereal disease in an infectious form, hence those
who will presumably have the greatest opportunity for dis-
seminating their infection are selected — these are palpably
the prostitutes.

The classic case is that of the prostitute who is brought
in and convicted of prostitution. She is fined $25 and
costs by the magistrate and is then free to resume her

Neo-Napoleonic Regulation 249

trade on the streets. The chances are a hundred to one
that she harhors venereal disease in an infectious form.
Is it responsible conduct or sane hygiene, in face of the
evidence, to permit her to go out without first submitting
to an examination? A direct and categorical "no" is the
only reasonable answer to this question. The charges have
been substantiated, and it is known that from 95 to 100 per
cent of all prostitutes are venereal. She must of course be
reported to the Board of Health as a venereal suspect and
be required to submit to a physical examination. But al-
ready the first error has been made. The offense of prosti-
tution is not adequately penalized by a fine; the woman
should have been committed to a reform or penal institution
and have been examined there. And what has happened
to her male copartner? Be it supposed that he, too, was
fined and was remanded for examination — what next? Let
it be assumed that he also is examined and is found to
be diseased. Then what? Both copartners are now at
quits with the state and cannot under the Constitution be
sentenced again by the court. The only possibility is for
the Board of Health either to grant one or both ambulatory
treatment or to detain one or both under quarantine. If
they are granted ambulatory treatment the probability is
that despite the warnings of the physician one or both will
expose others to infection, but the same is the case with
regard to most of the other immoral men and women who
come to the clinic for treatment. If the others, who are
known by the physicians of the Board of Health to have
acquired their disease through immorality, are permitted
to come and go, why should these two alone be quarantined?
Does it make the system any more rational, just to in-
carcerate these two out of the many hundreds of ambulatory
cases ?

But, it will be maintained, this woman is known to be
a prostitute, she has no other means to a livelihood, the
others may be of lesser degrees of immorality. Be it so,

250 The Lanes of Sex

for the sake of argument, what is to be gained by her in-
carceration? She will be cured, is the reply, and she will
be prevented from exposing many men to venereal infection.
This is the crux of the whole matter. She will be cured,
of course, but that will not alter her character or give her
a new means to a livelihood. Unless it is assumed that she
will be reformed as well as cured during the period of
quarantine, and will be taught a trade and insured a posi-
tion upon release, she will still be a prostitute when she
comes out and will in all likelihood become straightway
reinfected and again serve as a purveyor of venereal dis-
ease. Practical experience with the rehabilitation of pros-
titutes scarcely leads to optimism with regard to their
abrupt reform, especially under the wretched conditions
and absolute lack of educational facilities and follow-up
work in most of the lock hospitals and penal institutions.
Moreover, if the reformation of the individual prostitute
constitutes the hygienic object in view, it is just as im-
portant to reform the healthy as the diseased prostitute,
for a promiscuous life cannot be followed for any length
of time without infection, which again indicates the use-
lessness of discrimination in sentencing prostitutes on the
grounds of their physical health. On the continent it has
been found that the most depraved women often show no
signs of venereal disease; they learn how to conceal the
symptoms to some extent by douches and the like, and
even when no disease is present in a woman she can transmit
the infection if she has shortly before had sexual relations
with an infectious man. Because a prostitute is not a
venereal disease carrier today, it cannot be assumed that
she will not tomorrow harbor the spirochete or the gono-
coccus if she persists in following her trade. Therefore, it
is equally idle to permit a woman convicted of prostitution
to escape with a fine, whether at that moment the presence
of syphilis or gonorrhoea can or cannot be demonstrated.
The absence of demonstrable disease in a person convicted

Neo-Napoleonic Regulation 251

of prostitution is not so certain a guarantee of moral
character as to justify the imposition of a fine instead of a
jail sentence; indeed, it may be assumed that the imposition
of a fine will merely force her to redouble her energies in
whipping up trade and exposing herself to infection. Any-
one who knows the prostitute at first hand realizes that the
coincidence that she is not diseased today is no proof that
tomorrow she will be equally harmless. Besides which it is
an admitted medical fact that it is absolutely impossible to
make a negative diagnosis of gonorrhoea in a woman at a
single examination. She may actually have the disease when
the negative diagnosis is returned to the court, and both
syphilis and gonorrhoea may be present in the incubation
stage and not present any demonstrable symptoms until
some time after she has been released.

As to the men whom she would have exposed to infection,
her presence or absence on the street makes no whit of
difference. In her absence they will accept other prostitutes
who will, almost beyond question, be equally infectious, as all
are known to be from 95 to 100 per cent diseased and her
momentary elimination from the trade will be in vain. All
of the money and effort that has been spent on her board
and lodging will be thrown away, for other equally danger-
ous women will take her place on the street. The incar-
ceration of the man, however, will not have been so idle
for his transitory elimination may actually have diminished
the number of illicit relationships by an infinitesimal amount.

The illusion that the removal of one diseased and vicious
woman necessarily protects the men who might have patron-
ized her is based on the false idea that in her absence these
same men will not patronize other prostitutes. "One
venereal woman can expose many men in a single night,"
said Dr. Young, "whereas one man can only expose a few
women. Surely the woman is the more important focus of
infection."

This is the thought back of the minds of all those who

252 The Laws of Sex

believe in the police court examination of prostitutes. It
explains why in practice the regulations providing for the
examination of "persons" arrested for or convicted of pros-
titution operate chiefly against women, and it demonstrates
clearly the fact that the real object back of this plan is
the sanitation of vice. But the sanitation of vice is ob-
viously impossible, for vice predicates promiscuous sexual
relations between men and women and from 95 to 100 per
cent of promiscuous women are known to be infectious. The
percentile infectiousness of the woman on the streets is not
affected by the incarceration of such women or men as the
police can actually apprehend. She is as dangerous as
she was before her sister or her patron was examined or
detained. The woman who remains behind is the focus of
infection and she remains as long as vice does.

The vital reason why the police court examination of
prostitutes is a subversive factor in the control of venereal
disease rests precisely on this fact, that the sanitarians
assume an unreality when they state that the removal of
one diseased woman from the trade protects the men who
might have been exposed by her. Unless they remove all
of the women, or at least a sufficiently large number of them
to reduce the sum total of illicit relationships, the re-
moval of one or a dozen women has no hygienic value what-
soever. As long as a sufficient number of prostitutes' are
on the streets to satisfy the demand, the police court ex-
amination of prostitutes will be of no avail.

But, it will be claimed, each woman acts as a center of
pollution, she whips up trade and encourages vice, surely
if she is removed there will be fewer illicit relationships.
This argument again is based on an illusion, namely, that
the demand for prostitution arises from women, not from
men. If the lock hospital treatment of prostitutes resulted
in diminishing the volume of prostitution, certainly the out-
come would be of hygienic value, but it operates precisely
in the reverse direction, first, through encouraging illicit

Neo-Napoleomc Regulation 253

relations, by giving the patrons of prostitutes a false
sense of security, since they are led to believe that the in-
fectious women are removed from the trade; second, by
encouraging the courts merely to fine persons convicted
of prostitution, since they believe erroneously that they can
rely upon an examination to eliminate the venereal disease
carriers, and feel therefore no obligation to impose jail sen-
tences for the protection of the public health, and third, by
leading the public to suppose that the sanitation of vice can
be achieved through measures that have been proven worth-
less, thereby paralyzing the demand for the vigorous re-
pression of promiscuous intercourse.

Moreover, the total number of prostitutes is increased
rather than diminished by the lock hospital method, for
while the diseased prostitutes are removed, the demand for
prostitution remaining at the same point, new girls will
of necessity be brought in to augment the trade, and when
the diseased women are released, cured, competition will be
more active than it was before. "But," some medical man
will say, "that mother's son who came into my office this
morning, just 19 years old and infected with syphilis. He
had been a clean lad but he was accosted by a vicious woman
and she infected him. If she had been in jail instead of on
the streets that boy would be well today."

Yes, unless some other prostitute had accosted him and
had found him equally accessible, for the doctor can hardly
imagine that there was only one diseased prostitute solicit-
ing on the street on the fatal night. Moreover, the mere
fact that he fell indicates that his chastity was not unas-
sailable, and even if all of the other hundreds of prostitutes
had been busy on that night and had therefore let him
alone, consider the situation six months later after the
quarantine of the diseased woman has expired. It is not
to be supposed that the removal of one or a few women
will appreciably alter the demand for prostitution con-
stantly arising from men. During her months in jail the

254 The Laws of Sex

demand will remain at the same point and her potential
patrons will look elsewhere for the satisfaction of their lust.
Since she could presumably have made a living in prostitu-
tion, according to the law of supply and demand, some
other girl will be drafted into the trade during her ab-
sence. Thus upon her release two prostitutes will stand
where there was but one before. Moreover, it will be only
a question of days before the cured woman is reinfected.
When this is accomplished and the "mother's son" goes
walking again, he will face a double danger, two women will
be in pursuit instead of one, the temptation will be twice as
great as it was before. Moreover, if he now falls there
will be an extra woman waiting to infect some other
"mother's son."

Thus it is seen, first, that the hygienic value of the ex-
amination of persons arrested for or convicted of prostitu-
tion and the detention of those found to be diseased is
purely illusory since it looks to the sanitation of vice for
success ; second, that it tends to increase the total number
of prostitutes and the total volume of solicitation, and
third, that it acts to paralyze repression and to increase
the number of illicit relationships which is but another term
for the number of dangerous venereal contacts.

In addition it necessarily violates the constitutional rights
of a certain group of individuals and tends to encourage
the courts to unconstitutional procedures. Although the
regulations technically apply only to persons arrested for
or convicted of charges of immorality, in actual practice
persons who are merely charged with vagrancy or disor-
derly conduct are also forced to undergo examination. They
are committed to jail or other institutions under statutes
which provide for no detention at all, and the offense of
prostitution is penalized not on the grounds of the offense
itself but instead in accordance with the condition of the
defendant's health.

Meanwhile the public health officers and the members of

Neo-Napoleonic Regulation 255

the medical profession are provided with a plausible but
worthless excuse for refusing to support a rational plan
of quarantine for the control of venereal disease. The pub-
lic is hoodwinked, marriage is unprotected and the effete plan
of hounding prostitutes still goes on.

The proper plan would be to substitute jail sentences for
fines in the case of all persons convicted of prostitution,
male and female, and then to examine and treat these per-
sons under the institutional routine. Such a procedure would
tend to reduce the total number of contacts by undercut-
ting the demand and making prostitution unprofitable, by
eliminating the false sense of security which any organized
effort on the part of the state toward the sanitation of
vice implies, and by forcing the courts to recognize the
racial menace involved in all sexual promiscuity.

Prostitution should be penalized among both men and
women as constituting a defiance of hygiene in itself and
the detention of infected persons under quarantine should
be impartially administered on purely hygienic grounds. It
is clear that if a public clinic summarily jailed all patients,
male and female, giving a history of immorality and show-
ing symptoms of venereal disease, few patients would volun-
tarily report there for treatment. In Norway and Sweden
regulation was abandoned for this reason, as women dared
not report at the clinics for treatment, fearing incarcera-
tion. This may also explain why there are so few female
patients in America at the public venereal clinics, now that
the disease is made a pretext for commitment.

If, as the Board of Health regulations specifically state,
ambulatory treatment is permitted unless the patient breaks
the rules, no person should be detained until he or she has
first had an opportunity to prove good faith. To detain
certain persons before they have had a chance to live up to
the regulations merely because they have a court record is
unjust and unhygienic and leads to striking anomalies in
practice.

256 The Laws of Sex

The following case which was recently reported points the
fact:

X, a man of 28 years, unmarried, of excellent family,
was under treatment for gonorrhoea. He was a resident
of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. One night at a dance hall
he met a young girl with whom he commenced a violent flirta-
tion. He took her out in his automobile repeatedly and
finally persuaded her to have sex relations with him. She
was a domestic servant and her mistress, becoming suspi-
cious at the late hours she kept, reported her to the Board
of Health for examination. The girl was arrested, was
found to be suffering with gonorrhoea and was immediately
committed to a penal institution under "quarantine." She
gave the name of the man, X, who had infected her and
he was also arrested, examined, found to be diseased and sent
to the same institution. But, being a person of wealth and
position, he consulted a lawyer and a writ of habeas corpus
was issued. When the case was heard the lawyer brought
out the fact that X had been previously under treatment,
and produced evidence to show that he had reported regu-
larly to his physician, therefore complying entirely with the
Board of Health regulations. On this ground X was re-
leased but the girl he infected is still in prison.

Cases of this sort indicate the discriminatory nature of
the procedure which flows from a confusion between the
provinces of the courts and the Board of Health.

The futility of the police court examination of prostitutes
is already coming to be recognized by many of those who en-
thusiastically supported the measure during the war. Even
at that time the inefficacy of the method was subtly real-
ized by its proponents, for in the military zones dissolute
women were all outlawed regardless of the condition of their
health. If found in the neighborhood of military camps
or naval stations women of questionable purpose were im-
mediately put on trains and were summarily ordered to leave
or were sent to reformatories. No effort was made to dif-

Neo-Napoleonic Regulation 257

ferentiate among them on the basis of their temporary physi-
cal condition. All prostitutes were rightfully regarded as
a menace to the health of the soldiers, whether precisely at
that moment they chanced to harbor the spirochete and
the gonococcus or not. In the zones all prostitutes were
equally denied the right to practice their profession. Pro-
miscuity itself was regarded as a danger and the examina-
tion of public women was recognized at its true worth as
being valueless.

In the big cities, however, the problem was more complex ;
it was difficult to secure evidence against a prostitute suf-
ficient to convict and the thorough and high-handed methods
in vogue in the military zones were not practicable in New
York, Baltimore, New Orleans, etc. The fact was patent
that thousands of soldiers would have sexual intercourse with
dissolute women in the large towns and that one diseased
woman could infect many soldiers. It was a desperate situa-
tion sufficient to short-circuit reason or justice. The plausi-
ble but illusory benefits of regulation were very appealing,
and it is no wonder that those who had not studied the
problem were led into the path of proven error. The pres-
ent Board of Health regulations providing for the examina-
tion of persons arrested for or convicted of prostitution
and the detention of those found to be diseased were writ-
ten down admittedly for the protection of the health of
the soldiers. Since it is clear that continence would serve
as an adequate protection against infection, even in the
presence of diseased women, it may be inferred that the
detention . of diseased "persons" was ordered for the pro-
tection of the soldiers* health on the assumption that these
men would indulge in immorality if an opportunity offered.
In other words, the measure was originally advanced with
the point in view of minimizing the physical dangers of vice
for men or to secure the same benefits supposed to inhere
in regulation. The use of the word "person" instead of
"woman" has served to obscure the true intent of the meas-

258 The Laws of Sex

ure, but has not materially affected the actual operation
of the provision. Many of those who were at first deceived
by the phraseology now realize that these measures repre-
sent merely a reversion to old-fashioned regulation. It may
safely be predicted that a few more years of experience
with the police court examination of persons arrested for
or convicted of prostitution and the detention of those found
to be diseased will witness a strong and effective reaction
against these unconstitutional, unjust and subversive regu-
lations.

CHAPTER XI

VENEREAL PROPHYLAXIS

In addition to the police court regulation of prostitution
through the examination of persons arrested for or con-
victed of prostitution and the detention of those found to
be diseased, many members of the medical profession have
since the recent war advocated the use of venereal prophy-
laxis as a necessary step toward the sanitation of -vice.

Before the war these measures were more or less secretly
prescribed by certain physicians in the case of their male
patients who refused to observe chastity as a preventive
of venereal disease, but no outspoken demand was phrased
for their general introduction into civil life, for it was
feared that public resentment would be too intense.

At the inception of the war, when the military menace of
syphilis and gonorrhoea was clearly recognized, the medical
profession turned as one man to medical prophylaxis as a
means of preventing venereal infection. Recent experience
on the borders of Mexico, as well as elsewhere, had invali-
dated the hope of the control of these diseases through the
governmental supervision of prostitution. Moreover, it was
feared that the public would not support the open tolera-
tion of prostitution in the vicinity of army encampments.
At an early meeting of those interested in the control of
venereal disease in the army it was suggested that the most
effective way to meet the problem would be for the gov-
ernment to supply public women to the soldiers under a
painstaking system of examination and control, as had been
done during the recent war with Mexico when the U. S.

259

260 The Laws of Sex

Government built stockades for the housing of prostitutes
and actually shipped women in.

Mr. Abraham Flexner who was present at the meeting
declared: "There is no use discussing the merits of regu-
lation. The public will not tolerate the open recognition
of prostitution."

In the end his opinion prevailed, and medical men trans-
ferred their aspirations to prophylaxis, hoping by this means
to minimize the danger of venereal contacts.

From the outset the station method of prophylaxis was
preferred to the packet and General Orders were promptly
issued by the War and Navy Departments requiring all sol-
diers and sailors who had indulged in illicit sexual inter-
course to report promptly to a prophylactic station for
early treatment.

Even Secretary of the Navy Daniels, who before the war
had been opposed to the issuance of prophylactic packets,
capitulated to the plan for "early treatment."

In 1915 Secretary of the Navy Daniels wrote to all com-
manding officers as follows:

"The spectacle of an officer or hospital steward calling
up boys in their teens as they are going on leave and hand-
ing them these 'preventive packets' is abhorrent to me. It
is equivalent to the government advising these boys that
it is right for them to indulge in an evil which perverts their
morals. I would not permit a youth in whom I was inter-
ested to enlist in a service that would thus give virtual
approval to disobeying the teachings of his parents and the
dictates of the highest moral code. You may say that
the ideal raised is too high, and we need not expect young
men to live up to the ideal of continence. If so, I cannot
agree. It is a duty we cannot shirk to point to the true
ideal — to chastity, to the single standard of morals for
men and women."

This was before America's entrance into the great war,
before the compelling power of necessity had forced upon

Venereal Prophylaxis 261

military and medical men alike a true realization of the
practical cost to the nation of venereal disease.

On May 5, 1918, carried by the tide of public opinion
toward prophylaxis, he reversed his position and wrote:

"Every man in the Navy is given opportunity to present
himself to a medical officer for early treatment and such
measures of preventive medicine as may still be possible if
he has wilfully indulged in sin against the admonitions of
his medical advisers and in spite of the splendid endeavors
of the representatives of the Commission on Training Camp
Activities."

Many other men who had previously been opposed to pro-
phylaxis, such as Col. William F. Snow, General Direc-
tor of the A. S. H. A., and Dr. Edward L. Keyes, Jr.,
abandoned their former stand and came out publicly in fa-
vor of medical prophylaxis for the Army and Navy.

They and other members of the Commission on Training
Camp Activities constantly averred that prophylaxis was
desirable only for the duration of the war, and that the
prophylactic station would be most subversive if introduced
into civil life. Finally, the confusing synonym "early treat-
ment" became current and the opposition appeared com-
pletely to give way. In those earlier days it was predicted
that if prophylaxis were introduced into the Army on a
grand scale, simply for the duration of the war, it would
be well nigh impossible upon the conclusion of the war
to prevent its introduction into civilian communities. The
soldiers would be returning to their home towns, they would
be trained to a dependence upon prophylaxis, they would
be convinced that prophylaxis was the surest, the safest,
in fact, the only method of controlling venereal disease.
They would demand prophylaxis as a measure essential to
their health, and even the men who had not availed themselves
of it would scarcely question its ethical soundness, since
it had first been brought to their attention through gov-
ernment agencies. Medical men, too, would have come to

262 The Laws of Sex

appreciate the practical feasibility of this procedure, and
their apprehension with regard to public resentment would
have been stilled.

That this prediction has been realized is sufficiently indi-
cated by the fact that the United States Public Health
Service now actively advocates the direction of public funds
toward the institution of prophylaxis for the use of civi-
lians. In June, 1918, the Congress of the United States
passed the Army Appropriations Act, which provided for
the allotment to State Boards of Health of $1,000,000 each
year for two years, beginning July 1, 1918, for the fight
against venereal disease. For the second of these two years
the payment of the states' allotment was contingent upon
the appropriation of an equal amount by the state for
the prevention of venereal disease. The Public Health Serv-
ice, through its Division of Venereal Diseases, detailed to
the various State Boards of Health an officer of the Public
Health Service in uniform, who in most cases was in charge
of the Bureau of Venereal Disease in the State Board of
Health. His work was directed jointly by the Public Health
Service and the State Board of Health. One of his princi-
pal duties was to organize and establish venereal disease
clinics where prophylaxis was given.

Under the title "Instructions to Medical Officers in Charge
of State Control of Venereal Disease,*' Miscellaneous Pub-
lication Number 19, of the Treasury Department, the United
States Public Health Service states on page five:

CLINICS

Venereal disease clinics will be organized under the direct
supervision of the medical officer, acting as the representa-
tive of the State Board of Health, who will forward to the
Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Serv-
ice evidence in writing that each clinic has been thus organ-
ized, together with the date when its supervision was taken
over by the State Health Department. These clinics should

Venereal Prophylascis 263

have a very close relation to the county health officer and
the local medical profession, and to the community in gen-
eral.

The standards for venereal disease clinics are to be deter-
mined jointly by the State health officer and the medical
officer of the Public Health Service. It is requested, how-
ever, that these standards shall conform as closely as possi-
ble to the requirements here given.

On page 11 under paragraph 10, the requirement with re-
gard to prophylaxis is given:

10. Administration of early or prophylactic treatment. —
Every extra-marital intercourse is to be regarded as an
exposure to venereal infection, and the so-called prophylac-
tic treatment is really early treatment given without wait-
ing for definite diagnosis.

Such treatment is very efficacious in preventing the devel-
opment of venereal infections if given within the first hour
after exposure. Its value rapidly diminishes from then on,
and when four hours have elapsed since the exposure it is
of very little usefulness. It should, however, with this under-
standing, be given up to at least ten hours after exposure.

The following footnote is appended:

It is not designed to establish prophylactic or early t,r,eat-
ment stations primarily as such, but all clinics should be
prepared to intelligently administer this treatment to volun-
tary applicants who give a history of exposure within a
few hours immediately preceding their application.

The experience of the past two years has conclusively
shown that civilians will not in any significant proportion
report to the Board of Health clinics for station prophy-
laxis. In a venereal clinic conducted by the State Board
of Health in Baltimore, Md., at the Mercy Hospital, it was

264 The Lews of Sex

reported that only one man had applied for disinfection
within a period of about six months after the clinic was
opened. Yet Dr. George Walker, of Baltimore, Colonel of
the Medical Corps, U. S. Army, now publicly advocates
the institution at public expense of prophylactic stations in
hotels, public buildings, railway stations, apartment houses,
men's colleges and boys' schools. Apparently he does not
realize that public disapproval of immorality is so intense
that the occupant of an apartment house or a pupil at a
boys' school would scarcely find courage to enter a prophy-
lactic station attached to his own domain.

Moreover, the cost of maintaining an adequate number of
prophylactic stations would be so exorbitant as immediately
to alienate the interest of even the male taxpayers. The
stations would have to be conveniently located, for it is
recognized that delay invalidates prophylaxis; they would
have to be open day and night and presumably be operateS
for the benefit of both men and women.

The prohibitive expense of such a venture and its obvi-
ous impracticability in country districts and in small gos-
sipy towns, has already brought many men who theoretically
prefer the station method to compromise on the packet.

Large numbers of reputable genito-urinary men have prac-
tically transformed their offices into correspondence schools
on the subject of "early treatment." They use the United
States mails to disseminate pounds upon pounds of educa-
tional literature dealing with prophylaxis and they receive
compensation for their solicitude in the form of a huge mail
order business in their especial kind of prophylactic packet.

The danger of this sort of campaign is twofold : First, it
gives ground for the secret self-treatment of syphilis and
gonorrhoea, for the ordinary layman does not discriminate
between the disease in its early and late stages and fre-
quently uses the prophylactics to treat his developed dis-
ease, and, second, all prophylactic packets are not equally

Venereal Prophylaxis 265

efficacious and the financial returns on the less reliable ones
are greater than on those which are more elaborate.

For example, a prophylactic packet put out in Pennsyl-
vania and labelled, "Issued by the Pennsylvania State Board
of Health," was recently declared by Dr. George Walker
to be "worthless," as it contained no medicament for disin-
fection against gonorrhoea. Yet the average man presuma-
bly places confidence in a packet endorsed by the State Board
of Health.

The encouragement by physicians or public health offi-
cials of the secret self-treatment of syphilis and gonorrhoea
is obviously fraught with serious danger, especially so far
as wedlock is concerned, yet while the remunerative mail
order business is permitted it is obviously impossible either
for the state to guarantee the efficacy of the packets sent
out or their proper use by their ignorant recipients.

When the care that is recommended by the Public Health
Service in the administration of prophylaxis is considered,
it is clear that the average uninformed layman is incompe-
tent to attend to its administration, even to himself.

In Instructions to Medical Officers in Charge of State
Control of Venereal Disease (Misc. Pub. No. 19, pages 11
and 12), the United States Public Health Service directs:

"Cases applying after ten hours following exposure should
be instructed to bathe thoroughly with soap and water and
in the case of females also to take a douche. All persons
giving a history of exposure should report at the clinic
every other day for ten days and after that weekly for two
months, in order that any infection may be detected at
the earliest moment and they should be instructed them-
selves to watch for suspicious symptoms. It should always
be remembered that complete control of the patient is nec-
essary in order to obtain satisfactory results from early
or prophylactic treatment."

266 The Laws of Sea:

"MALES"

"Have patient empty the bladder.

"Wash the genitals and adjacent parts with soap and
water, followed by a 1-2000 bichloride solution. Dry the
parts thoroughly.

"Inject a 2 per cent protargol solution or a 10 per
cent argyrol solution, freshly made, into the urethra, enough
to distend it moderately, and see that the patient holds
the solution for five minutes before expelling it.

"Anoint the whole of the penis and scrotum with 33 per
cent calomel ointment, rubbing in thoroughly and using
special care about the folds of the frenum, foreskin and
scrotum and taking at least ten minutes to the operation.
Cover in oiled silk or wax paper, and allow to remain for
several hours before washing the parts. Since the water
content of the base renders the calomel more active, it is
important that the ointment be made with lanolin instead
of the fats usually employed for salves. Care should be
exercised that the lanolin is not anhydrus."

The directions for the early treatment of females are
even more elaborate and are prefaced by the following state-
ment, which indicates that in spite of the contention by
the Public Health Service that it purposes giving treatment
impartially regardless of sex, a mental reservation is still
held.

"FEMALES"

"In cases of rape, and some others, there may be occa-
sion for applying early treatment to females."

It would be interesting to know precisely what "others"
the Public Health Service refers to, as no similar ambiguity
exists in connection with the early treatment of all males.

In considering the utility of prophylaxis as a preventive
of venereal disease, the discussion may very justly fall under
two heads, first the practical medical efficiency of the meas-
ure, and, second, the moral effect of the essential propa-

Venereal Prophylaxis 267

ganda. For, as Major Leonard Darwin, one of the lead-
ing exponents of prophylaxis in England, has said : "If the
early treatment of these diseases is right, it follows that it
cannot be wrong, not only to make known this fact, but
also to indicate where this early treatment can be obtained.
To create hospital facilities which no one knows about, or
which are believed to be unnecessary, would be obviously
foolish."1 Moreover, the information would have to be dis-
seminated among boys and very young men, for it is recog-
nized that the vast majority of initial infections occur among
youths between the years of eighteen and twenty-five.

The experience of the war, drawn from enormous num-
bers of prophylactic treatments given, would seem to indi-
cate, first, that the efficiency of prophylaxis bears a direct
ratio to the promptitude with which it is administered;
second, that even under ideal conditions it is by no means
infallible, and third, that the men who expose themselves
to venereal infection cannot be relied upon, even after care-
ful instruction, invariably to report for treatment. In
addition it has been found that a considerable number of the
infections are extra-genital, the primary lesions appearing
at the base of the penis or about the mouth in regions that
are not reached by the process of disinfection. Some physi-
cians estimate that extra-genital infections constitute about
8 per cent of the cases resultant from voluntary venereal
contacts. It is to be remembered that the army program
included not only prophylaxis, but, under the leadership
of the Surgeon General and Lieutenant Colonel W. F. Snow,
the emphasis was laid on education and law enforcement
for the purpose of reducing infection by diminishing illicit
sexual contact. The success of the methods of prevention
other than prophylaxis seems, according to Major W. A.
Sawyer, to be clearly shown in the numerous instances in
which the rate of venereal infection fell while the number of

*The Campaign against Venereal Disease in Its Ethical Aspect.
Leonard Darwin, Social Hygiene, Oct., 1918.

268 The Laws of Sex

prophylactic treatments also went down. There is a great
difference of opinion with regard to the percentile efficiency
of prophylaxis in aborting cases of venereal disease, some
men stating that it is efficacious in fifty per cent of the cases
if given within two hours after exposure while others claim a
much higher ratio of success. Even the statistics gathered
seem to pont with absolute conclusiveness to but one thing,
namely, that even under military conditions, when a system
of prophylaxis can be enforced by penalization, by education
and by rigorous army regulations, the venereal diseases still
present the greatest single menace to military efficiency that
exists.

Those who advocate the introduction of the prophylactic
station into civil life base their demand upon what they be-
lieve to be the proven efficiency of prophylaxis. They
recall the experiments of Metschnikoff and thev believe, as
did the regulationists in their day, that sufficient statis-
tics are at hand to demonstrate that the venereal rate is
materially improved as a result of this measure. Statis-
tics, however, form a precarious basis upon which to predi-
cate results, for many unknown factors may intervene to
alter their significance and the conclusions drawn therefrom
may in no wise coincide with the facts. For example, ac-
cording to the estimate of the Surgeon General of the Army
five-sixths of the venereal disease in the army was
brought in at the time of mobilization ; that is, five sol-
diers brought their disease into the army from civil life,
whereas only one soldier contracted his disease after en-
listment. From these figures it is precipitately inferred that
venereal disease is five times more prevalent in civil than
in army life, and the conclusion is drawn that prophylaxis
must be miraculously efficient. Now, in point of actual
fact, these figures are susceptible of no such deduction, for
the high proportion of cases originating in civil life may
be due in large measure to the longer time period during

Venereal Prophylaxis 269

which exposure to disease was possible. Moreover, prohi-
bition and the closure of the red light districts in the vicin-
ity of army encampments doubtless contributed materially
to lessen the venereal rate, for it is well known that venereal
disease bears a direct ratio to alcohol and the availability
of prostitution.

In an interesting series of cases reported by Medical
Inspector Charles E. Riggs, United States Navy, he found
that following the removal of segregated prostitution in
Norfolk, Virginia, the percentage of infection among the men
in the service dropped through five successive periods of
five months each from a yearly rate of 101 per 1000, to
48.9 per 1000.2 Since medical prophylaxis had been in use
for some time prior to the period covered in these statis-
tics and therefore constituted a constant factor, it would
scarcely be possible to attribute the improved rate to pro-
phylaxis.

Another condition that is also frequently overlooked in
considering the army statistics, is that many of the girls who
were used by the men in the service did not belong to the
ordinary prostitute class. Caught by the lure of the uni-
form and stimulated by the war spirit, large numbers of
very young girls made their initial sexual mistake at the
behest of some soldier. To classify intercourse with these
previously chaste children as exposure to venereal disease
may involve serious error. One point that it is of prime
importance to ascertain before any positive statement can
be made with regard to the percentile efficacy of prophy-
laxis is the actual infectiousness of the girls implicated
in the illicit intercourse. This factor is one of the un-
knowns that makes reliance upon the army statistics of
such doubtful surety.

Even the average rate of infection of men following illicit

*A Study of Venereal Prophylaxis in the Navy. Charles E. Riggs,
Social Hygiene, July, 1917.

270 The Laws of Sex

intercourse unassociated with prophylaxis remains to be de-
termined, for some men boast that they have had a hundred
girls without prophylaxis, and have come through un-
scathed, while many men have contracted venereal disease
on their first exposure. The susceptibility of different men
to venereal disease may, for all that is known to the contrary,
vary greatly, and yet this factor is left altogether out of
account in the statistics regarding prophylaxis.

According to army terminology, every illicit intercourse
constitutes exposure to venereal disease, and the statistics
are interpreted on this basis. If, out of 100 prophylactic
treatments, only 1 or 2 per cent are followed by infection,
it is left to be assumed that the other 98 or 99 per cent
achieved immunity as a result of prophylaxis. That such
a deduction is utterly untenable clinical experience suffi-
ciently indicates, and yet it is upon baseless evidence of
this sort that the assertion is made that prophylaxis is
"practically infallible." The stress that is laid upon the
necessity for prompt administration leads to the inference
that it is a practically certain preventive, and yet multi-
tudes of cases are on record where venereal disease has de-
veloped following even the prompt administration of prophy-
laxis. Thus Bishop Lawrence states: "If given within a
certain time after possible infection, prophylaxis is a prac-
tically sure preventive," and he draws the conclusion that
"prophylaxis does more to cut down the number of in-
fected men than any one cause."

That this lay optimism is not universally shared by medi-
cal men who have had long experience with prophylaxis is
well evidenced in an article prepared by Dr. R. C. Hoi-
comb, Medical Commander, United States Navy, and pub-
lished in Social Hygiene. Dr. Holcomb's report covers a
long series of years in the United States Navy, from 1880 to
1916, and especial attention is given to the years from 1909
onwards, during which prophylaxis was in force. The report
says:

Venereal Prophylaxit 271

Let us first examine the rate for gonorrhoea. In 1918,
the rate was 10.7 per 10,000, and for the preceding seven
years the highest rate was 12.3. When prophylaxis went
into effect in 1909, the rate increased to 16.6, and has not
been lower than 15.05 per 10,000 since that time. Gonor-
rhoea cannot, therefore, be said to show improvement.

Let us now glance at the table for chancroid. The rate
in 1908 was 3.3 per 10,000. In 1909 (when prophylaxis
went into effect) the rate increased to 4.6. The rate here
does not, on the whole, show much beneficial influence as
a result of prophylaxis. In fact the ratios for the four
years preceding 1909 are lower than for any year since.

We may now see what has happened so far as syphilis
is concerned. In 1909 the damage rate increased from
30.0 per 10,000 to 38.7 per 10,000; the rate since then
compares very favorably with preceding years. In 1914, it
dropped to 24.4 per 10,000, a rate only bettered by the
record of the year 1893, when it was 23.6 per 10,000. How
much the drop in damage since 1911 has been influenced
by improved methods of diagnosis and treatment, I can-
not show by statistics, but in this year the general use
of Salvarsan came into vogue, and in my opinion this fact
is a large factor in accounting for the improvement in
the damage rate of syphilis.

The figures for syphilis for the years immediately preced-
ing and following the institution of prophylaxis are : 1907,
damage per 10,000, 30.3; 1908, 30.0; 1909 — in which year
prophylaxis went into effect— 38.7; 1910, 32.5; 1911, 36.7;
1912, 31.1; 1913, 31.6; 1914, 24.4; 1915, 31.6;
1917, 31.5.

In the course of his paper, Medical Commander Holcomb
says further (referring to still other tables) :

These rates might lead us to conclude that a method of
prophylaxis depending upon the efficiency of antiseptic

272 The Laws of Sex

drugs alone was a most dangerous and reprehensible sort
of a propaganda, and we might be inclined to interpret these
rates as indicating an alarming degree of license. It would
suggest that men were depending for safety after exposure
upon the protecting and shielding power of a drug which
had failed their expectations. Doubtless the prophylactic
measure did breed a sense of security. Anyone who kept
in touch with his crew could not fail to note this, but the
increase in the rate was not all due to this cause.

In another part of his paper, Medical Commander Hoi-
comb says:

Now comes the question whether the government should
take the part of the apparent panderer and offer this or
any other treatment or device as a protection from the
results of venery. Coming from an administrative office,
I have met the mother, whose trembling voice told me her
son came to the Navy an innocent boy, and the disease for
which he was invalidated and cast off was contracted be-
cause he believed from instruction received, that if he only
used the prophylactic he might incur the risk with im-
punity. Having met this mother, I can see more phases
of the question. Again, I recall the lad who experimented
with the prophylactic packet claimed to be so safe that it
is "practically infallible," and when he was discharged for
disease not in line of duty, his father and a lawyer claimed
that he was a victim of science; that he had exposed him-
self and used the prophylactic for the advancement of
science. To drive the question home, I ask, would you who
huve sons, want someone to put such a packet in their hands
and suggest thereby that they expose themselves to a prosti-
tute unnecessary to their physical or moral well-being? I
leave each person to answer the question for himself, accord-
ing to his sense of morality.

Venereal Prophylaxis 873

If, as Medical Commander Holcomb claims, prophylaxis
causes an increase in illicit intercourse, it is at least pos-
sible that the increased exposure leads to an increase in
infection despite the efficacy of prophylaxis in dealing with
the individual case. The situation is analagous to that
which obtained under regulation, and is open to the same
objection. In "Prostitution in Europe," Mr. Abraham
Flexner said: "To whatever extent regulation tends to
increase irregular commerce by diminishing individual and
social resistance, to that extent it tends to increase the
amount of venereal disease. Therefore, even if regulation
should be found to be more or less effective, its sanitary
achievement has to be offset against the increased amount
of congress to which it indubitably conduces ; one has to
ask whether more congress with regulation is not likely
to result in more disease than would result in less congress
without any regulation at all."

The singular disparity that exists in the statistics on
medical prophylaxis compiled during the war is indicated
in the difference of opinion between Dr. P. M. Ashburn,
Colonel, Medical Corps, U. S. Army, who was with the
A. E. F. overseas, and Dr. George Walker, who was a mem-
ber of his staff. Both Dr. Ashburn and Dr. Walker studied
the operation of prophylaxis at first hand from practically
the same kind of clinical material, and each derived an
opposite opinion. Dr. Ashburn holds prophylaxis to be a
subversive factor in the control of venereal disease on moral
grounds and is definitely opposed to its introduction into
civil life, while Dr. Walker claims it to be almost infallible
and bases his hope for the eradication of venereal disease
upon its general use by both men and women.

Dr. Walker's figures show 242,000 prophylactic treat-
ments for the entire American Expeditionary Force with only
1.3 per cent failures.

Dr. Ashburn's figures, on the contrary, lead him to the

£74 The Laws of Sex

conclusion that "venereal prophylaxis or 'early treatment*
after an impure sexual connection reduces the liability to
venereal infection to one-third of what it would be without
it, and that in France, where practically all exposures on
the part of our troops could fairly be considered impure
and potentially infectious, there resulted one infection to
thirty exposures without the use of prophylaxis, and one
infection to ninety exposures followed by its use."

Early in September, 1919, through the efforts of Dr.
Ashburn, a questionnaire accompanied by the following
statement for the Surgeon General of the Army was sub-
mitted to each patient in whom a new case of venereal disease
was detected:

"The soldier will be informed that this information is de-
sired for use in the control of venereal disease, that it will
be held confidentially, and not used to his detriment; that
he is under no compulsion to furnish it, but that information
will be appreciated. He will be asked to tell the truth or
to refuse to answer, but to avoid making misleading state-
ments. A report of this sort will be sent in on each new
case of venereal disease detected, but if the soldier refuses
to furnish any of the information asked for, that fact will
be stated."

According to an article by Dr. Ashburn which appeared
on May 8, 1920, in the Journal of the American Medical
Association: "By Feb. 26, 1920, 5000 case reports had
been received and compiled: 4755 men answered the ques-
tion as to whether or not their infections followed the use
of prophylaxis, of which number 2359 men said theirs did.

"Among these 5000 infected men the average number of
sexual contacts followed by prophylaxis was for the pre-
ceding year, 15.3 for each infection following its use, while
the average number of contacts without prophylaxis was,
during the same period, 11.6 for each infection following its
neglect."

General Order No. 17 of 1912 provided for the court-mar-

Venereal Prophylaxis 275

tial of soldiers who failed to report for prophylactic treat-
ment after illicit intercourse and who later developed a
venereal disease, yet there occurs no observable diminution
in the venereal rate following the year 1912; in fact the
rate for syphilis actually increases.

Most of the supporters of prophylaxis grant that the
institution of this measure leads to an increase in irregu-
lar sexual commerce, but so they claim does the actual
treatment of venereal disease. In a paper which appeared in
Social Hygiene, Major Leonard Darwin says: "No doubt
by affording facilities for such preventive treatment we
should seem openly to recognize promiscuous intercourse and
open recognition is apt to be accompanied by a slackening
in the efforts to prevent immorality. But in my opinion,
this harmful influence, though it has to be recognized, must
be faced in view of the immense mass of misery from which
both the guilty and the innocent might be saved by the
early preventive treatment of those possibly infected."

At first thought, this reasoning seems plausible enough.
The choice presented is between two evils, and the acceptance
of the lesser evil is but in line with common sense. How-
ever, when one considers in human tokens what increased
immorality really means, it becomes scarcely credible that
men of sound ethics and understanding can agree to pay
this price even for so humane a purpose as to cut down
the incidence of venereal disease. Increased immorality,
which Major Darwin states must be so plainly faced, predi-
cates the addition of new recruits to the ranks of prosti-
tution, for since men cannot have sexual intercourse alone,
an activated demand on the part of men for copartners in
vice necessitates a corresponding increase in the supply.
In other words, the dimunition in the venereal rate is to
be paid for in the degradation of girls who would other-
wise, according to Major Darwin's own assumption, be
spared from a life of sexual perversion. This, in an era of
civilization, is an astonishing price to offer for any human

276 The Laws of Sex

benefit, and it is to be doubted if so complete an abroga-
tion of the ordinary principles of human decency can re-
sult in anything but a fictitious improvement. In point of
fact, each new girl who is brought in will in turn become
an additional center of infection.

With prophylaxis, as in the case of regulation, this will-
ingness to accept immorality on the part of men as an
unavoidable increment in the program, gives rise to the ques-
tion as to what may be the ultimate objective in the cam-
paign. If, as so many supporters of prophylaxis state, a
single standard of morality for the two sexes is the object
sought, it seems obviously incompatible with wisdom to
institute temporazing methods for the control of venereal
disease when these methods are known to be antagonistic
to the primary purpose in view. Surgeon General Gorgas
said in an address before the American Public Health Asso-
ciation: "If the sexual morals of our male population
were on the same plane as the sexual morals of our female
population, I am inclined to believe that veneral disease
prevention would be far on the road to success, and I hope
that this relation of morals to the problem can be brought
about by the very general educational processes that we
are at present engaged in spreading throughout the popu-
lation."

But in connection with the educational campaign prophy-
laxis is a great impediment to progress for it necessarily
"slackens the effort to prevent immorality" by giving offi-
cial governmental sanction to sexual vice for men. Ac-
tions speak louder than words, and no young man of sense
will believe preceptors who tell him verbally that sexual
vice is intolerable, if at the same time he witnesses their
open toleration of it.

In order to think clearly of the relation of morals to
the campaign against venereal disease, it is well to regard
continence simply as a sanitary measure. Differently
phrased, it is merely avoidance of exposure to venereal in-

Venereal Prophylaxis 877

fection. This is a fundamental principle in the control
and prevention of all other infectious diseases, for exam-
ple, diphtheria, smallpox, rabies, etc. In the case of these
others any prophylactic measure which carried with it a
guarantee of increased exposure or which, indeed, paralyzed
the arm of the law in enforcing regulations against expo-
sure would be regarded with extreme skepticism.

This is the place where ethics and hygiene meet, for
here the object is identical. The moralist and the sani-
tarian both desire, for different reasons, the same thing,
namely, to prevent exposure to venereal infection. Instead
of a single standard of morals it may be said that a single
standard of hygiene is the object sought, for thinking in
sanitary terms it is clear that a campaign against an infec-
tious disease cannot sensibly be conducted along sex lines.
To attempt to control the spread of scarlet fever or small-
pox or diphtheria by preventing the exposure of females
to infection while openly permitting the unlicensed expo-
sure of males, would be so contrary to reason that even
the most untutored mind would instantly grasp the anomaly,
and yet unhappily in the case of venereal disease, it is pre-
cisely this plan that many sanitarians are unthinkingly fol-
lowing.

The case as put forward by the proponents of prophy-
laxis suggests the ancient legend of the princess and the
dragon, when to save the country from pestilence the people
led forth a victim each year to be devoured by the monster.
The ethics of prophylaxis as phrased by Major Darwin is
strikingly similar, for to save the country from the pesti-
lence of venereal disease he concedes the necessity of a
continual sacrifice of fresh girls to the Moloch of men's
lust. That such a sacrifice is not incompatible with hu-
manitarian ideals is witnessed by the alleged fact that all
treatment of venereal disease serves to remove one of the
obstacles to immorality. "To let these diseased run riot,"
says Major Darwin, "unchecked and unalleviated, with all

278 The Lams of Sea:

the terrible consequences of such a policy, would add greatly
to the fear and lessen the practice of immorality. But if
we repudiate this horrible alternative we must admit that
our medical efforts do tend somewhat to increase vice, and
that we are striking a balance between the evils of increas-
ing sexual immorality."

It is this close alignment between prophylaxis and the
actual treatment of venereal disease that has so confused
the public mind with regard to the ethics of prophylaxis.
The duty of giving medical care to sick people regardless
of their conduct is so plain that the application of the term
"early treatment" to prophylaxis, has served as a sort of
ethical guarantee of its propriety. On mature considera-
tion, however, it will be seen that the ethical and educa-
tional values involved in prophylaxis and in the treatment
of venereal disease are utterly at variance.

Possibly the simplest way of making clear this difference
is to consider the effect of prophylaxis and the actual treat-
ment of venereal disease in the case of women. Suppose, for
example, coincidently with the introduction of prophylaxis
for men, "early treatment" stations for the use of women
were to be instituted. Following out the same chain of
reasoning that is applied in the case of men, all penaliza-
tion for sexual irregularities on the part of women would
have to be abandoned, for, as Captain Clarke, of the Ameri-
can Social Hygiene Association, said: "If then punishment
were administered for illicit sex relations and women (in
this case) knew that they would convict themselves in apply-
ing for such treatment, they would fail to apply and there
would be a consequent increase in venereal disease." Thus
for the sake of early treatment, immorality on the part of
women would have to be faced, and all measures for the
prevention of irregular sexual commerce for women, save
education and recreation, would have to be abandoned.
Propaganda talks on the subject of the dignity and respon-
sibility of sex might be still held, and literature, including

Venereal Prophylaxis £79

admonitions with regard to prophylaxis, be distributed, and
the brothers, fathers and husbands of the women might
meet together and lay plans for recreation suitable to tempt
their wives and daughters away from the paths of vice,
but to keep the campaign on the same plane as is that for
men at present, no more stringent measures could be enter-
tained. Above all, penalization for vice could not be seri-
ously considered, for the women would not report for pro-
phylactic treatment if thereby they made themselves liable
to punishment. No nurse could be dismissed for improper
conduct, no girl committed to an institution for rehabilita-
tion, no prostitute jailed, and feminine sexual immorality
would have to be openly and philosophically accepted as
part of the medical program. To any reasonable person
it is clear that a single decade under such a policy of tolera-
tion, if carried through with the sincerity actually practiced
in the case of man, would result in a striking change in
the standards of feminine conduct.

Now in the case of the venereal clinic, no such reversal
of public and private policy with regard to feminine morals
is involved. It is inconceivable that the voluntary treat-
ment of women has ever contributed in the smallest degree
toward fostering immorality. On the contrary, the venereal
clinic by making known the ill results of vice has been
a distinct influence in checking irregular sexual commerce.
The effect of the propaganda directed toward increasing
the scope of the venereal clinic, for both men and women,
is exactly opposite to the effect of the propaganda toward
prophylaxis, for the normal individual does not enjoy the
prospect of contracting a serious disease even if he or
she realizes that in the majority of cases it can be cured.
Prophylactic propaganda leads men to suppose that the
physical evils of vice can be avoided, while the propaganda
leading toward the venereal clinic acts in a precisely con-
trary manner, by stressing in every instance the dangers
associated with immorality.

280 The Laws of Sex

The very term "early treatment" is a false use of words,
for it is impossible to treat a disease if it is absent. The
fact that the United States Public Health Service pleases to
call all illicit intercourse "exposure to venereal disease" does
not, by that same token, make it so, and prophylactic treat-
ment has without doubt been given in many cases where the
infective organisms of both syphilis and gonorrhea were
absent. This abuse of language conduces to an exaggerated
notion of the efficacy of prophylaxis and in turn this leads
to a false sense of security. Here again the contrast be-
tween the venereal clinic and prophylaxis is obvious, for it
is unimaginable that either the propaganda leading toward
the clinic or the actual treatment of venereal diseases ever
fostered a false sense of security with regard to the physical
dangers of vice.

It is this phase of the problem that has led some sup-
porters of the prophylactic station to discriminate between
the station and the prophylactic packet. That such a dis-
crimination is utterly untenable becomes clear on considera-
tion of the psychological factors involved in the case of the
two measures. By some lapse of reason it is fancied that
the sense of security implied by the prophylactic packet
differs in an obscure way from the sense of security asso-
ciated with the prophylactic station. It is true that the
prophylactic packet does carry with it the imputation that
vice can be made at least comparatively safe, but the same
imputation, even in an exaggerated form, is inextricably en-
meshed with all propaganda directed toward the prophylac-
tic station. Verbal admonitions as to the undepend ability
of prophylaxis can be equally well given in the case of the
station and the packet, but it is scarcely to be believed
that the adherents of either measure will find it congenial
to emphasize the failure of prophylaxis when they are
attempting to instill faith as to its usefulness.

Doubtless the factor that has contributed more than

Venereal Prophylaxis 281

any other to this fictitious discrimination is the desire on
the part of those concerned in advocating prophylaxis to
conceal even from themselves a true realization of the part
they are playing. It is not a nice thing to admit that
one is acting the panderer, by attempting to make vice
safe for men, and the prophylactic station lends itself more
readily to mental camouflage than does the prophylactic
packet. When an officer or a steward hands a boy a pro-
phylactic packet as he is going on leave, the act suggests
in a brutally frank way that the government is playing
the part of panderer; but is not the psychology of the
case, so far as the boy is concerned, precisely the same
when physicians or public health officials tell him through
literature, placards and propaganda talks that the prophy-
lactic station is waiting for him at a certain address? The
suggestion that vice can, by medical measures, be made
comparatively safe, and the additional guarantee that the
government absolutely endorses it, is identical in the case
of the station and the packet, and it is these two fac-
tors in combination that influence the conduct of the young
man. The fact is that the sensitive adherents of prophy-
laxis, such as Secretary of the Navy Daniels, by a feat
of mental gymnastics, convince themselves that instruc-
tion in station prophylaxis cannot by any possibility affect
the conduct of young men until the moment immediately
following illicit sexual intercourse, whereas the bodily pres-
ence of the prophylactic packet in possession of the young
man prior to sexual intercourse dispels such comforting
illusions.

One of the favorite questions of the proponents of pro-
phylaxis designed to put the opposition to flight is: "If
your son came in some evening and said, 'Mother, I have,
at the solicitation of a vicious woman, just exposed myself
to venereal disease/ what would you do? Would you not
immediately take him to a physician for disinfection ?"

388 The Laws of Sex

The question is a purely hypothetical one, which any
parent will agree is not likely to be duplicated in real
life, and is misleading, since it eliminates the subversive
educational factor by presupposing that prophylaxis could
be effectively made use of in the absence of public knowl-
edge as to its availability prior to illicit intercourse. It
is a question clearly planned to confuse rather than to
enlighten.

In point of fact, instruction in regard to the prophy-
lactic station involves quite as much suggestion as to the
safety and tolerability of vice as does the packet, for in
order to insure usage of the station, information must
be spread broadcast as to its whereabouts and its utility.
Moreover, this knowledge must be in possession of the
young man preceding illicit sexual intercourse, for the
measure is admittedly useless if its administration is de-
layed. To discriminate between giving this information
and giving the packet is idle, for in both cases it is "equiva-
lent to the government advising these boys that it is right
for them to indulge in an evil which perverts their morals."
In the case of the packet and the station it is equally pos-
sible for public health officials or physicians verbally to
state that vice is not necessary to health, or that prophy-
laxis is not infallible, or any other moral admonition. The
leading facts that the boys derive will be the same, namely,
that public opinion sanctions vice for men and that medi-
cal measures are a good substitute for continence in avoid-
ing the risk of venereal infection.

The report of a special commission appointed by the
British Government to study infectious diseases in their
relation to demobilization comes out strongly against the
prophylactic packet and stirred up considerable controversy
in England in this regard.

The report, which was issued as a White Paper, in the
fall of 1919, reads:

Venereal Prophylaxis 283

The Committee desire me to point out that in their
view, many of those who wish the Government to utilize
in peace time for the civil population methods which have
been tried among the forces in war, have not sufficiently
appreciated the fundamental differences between the two
groups, or between the conditions of war and peace; nor
have they been aware of the comparative failure of packets
even in a disciplined force. The civil authorities cannot
command or control the general population (men and
women) as officers can properly and legitimately control
enlisted men. In dealing with the latter, officers in differ-
ent forces have had power —

( 1 ) To make medical examinations at regular intervals ;

(2) To provide facilities for continuous and direct
propaganda ;

(3) To punish disobedience of official advice, conceal-
ment of disease, or disregard of treatment;

(4) To exclude certain persons from camps, etc.;

(5) To put certain places out of bounds;

(6) To organize recreation, etc.;

(7) To enforce other service regulations.

It is also the direct interest of the officers in charge
of men to keep the venereal rate amongst them as low as
possible. There can be nothing in the civil population
analogous to this pressure of responsibility and discipline.
Unfortunately no civil peace figures are obtainable, but
the military and naval pre-war figures are significant as
showing a decline in the venereal rate following upon im-
provement in general conditions and surroundings and the
development of recreation and social amusements. Table E
is interesting in showing the more rapid reduction among
troops in Aldershot, when recreation was organized, than
in London, where social recreations, etc., within barracks
had to contend with the counter attractions of the streets.
I would also draw special attention to the Army figures

284 The Laws of Sex

from 1870, which show the venereal rate in the British
Army before, during and after the operation of the Con-
tagious Diseases Acts, and which seem to suggest that
methods no less vaunted in their time than is the use of
prophylactic "packets" at the present time, were not ef-
fective in reducing the disease when put into operation.

Finally, it is the committee's view that the assumption
that the present incidence of venereal disease in the Army
is greater than that among a similar number of men in
civilian life is not established.

CONCLUSIONS BASED ON SERVICE EXPERIENCE

In regard to the general experience of prophylactics
distributed before exposure to infection, as prevailing in
the various services, the Committee have come to the fol-
lowing conclusions:

(1) That certain drugs, if properly applied, are effica-
cious in preventing venereal disease;

(2) That if these drugs are not properly or skillfully
applied their efficacy cannot be relied upon;

(3) That the issue of prophylactic "packets" tends to
give rise to a false sense of security, and thus to encour-
age the taking of risks which would not be otherwise in-
curred, and the neglect of facilities for early treatment
when available; and, in certain circumstances, might even
increase the spread of disease;

(4) That in spite of the most careful instruction, the
grant or issue of "packets" results in many an individual
using them for self-treatment after he finds himself in-
fected. They are not intended for this purpose, and are
ineffective when so used. Drugs which are accredited with
the power of preventing diseases are very frequently ac-
cepted by the public as useful in their treatment. Their
use for the treatment of developed disease may be definitely
harmful, since they delay diagnosis and the application of

Venereal Prophylaxis 885

proper treatment at a time when promptitude is of the
very first importance to its success;3

(5) That, where preventive treatment is provided by a
skilled attendant after exposure to infection, the results
are better than when the same measures are taken by the
individual affected, even after the most careful instruc-
tion;

(6) That the excessive consumption of alcoholic liquors
not only diminishes the sense of responsibility, but also
tends to prevent the proper use of prophylactics and to
delay the individual's application of skilled treatment;

(7) That the most carefully organized packet system,
such as exists now in the Army (a system which would
be unattainable in the civil community), has not produced
such a general reduction in the incidence of venereal dis-
ease as to counteract the disadvantages mentioned in these
conclusions ;

(8) That the organization of recreation and social
amenities has assisted in the reduction of the incidence of
venereal diseases in the Services before the war, and has
also assisted in preventing that increase in the incidence
of these diseases, which, from past experience, might have
been anticipated during the war ;

(9) That energy should not be dissipated on measures of
doubtful value, but concentrated rather on wise propaganda
and the provision of early, prompt, and skilled treatment,
in order to diminish the prevalance of these diseases. It
should be recognized that failure to cure these diseases
is one of the main causes of their prevalence, and that
failure to cure, in the most skilled hands, results largely
from failure to treat them in their early stages.

I have also been asked on behalf of all the representa-

*This and other points would suggest, too, that the general sale of
such medicaments by chemists and unqualified persons might tend to
nullify the beneficial results of the Venereal Diseases Act, 1917, as
regards the prohibition of treatment, and advertisement of treatment,
by unqualified persons.

286 The Laws of Sex

tives of the different departments who assisted at various
times in our deliberations on this subject to record their
unanimous view that the true safeguard against these dis-
eases is individual continence and a high standard of moral
life. This implies a sound public opinion and a healthy
national tone. The Committee set out to examine the evi-
dence placed before them from the scientific and the medi-
cal point of view, and it is strictly in this spirit that they
desire to record it as their opinion that the irreplaceable
effect of the moral factor has been too frequently neglected
or forgotten.

GENERAL CONCLUSION

In view of these findings the Committee are not satisfied
that there has been sufficient evidence put before them of
the beneficial results gamed by the distribution of prophy-
lactic packets in various Forces to prove the value of the
system or to justify them in recommending its official en-
couragement among the civil population. Unquestionably
there have been many individual cases which appear to
afford positive evidence in favor of a system of distribu-
tion of such prophylactics before exposure to infection;
but the volume of such evidence is too small and too ex-
ceptional, and the instances of its failure, even under fa-
vorable circumstances, are too numerous, to allow of any
other conclusion than that, in view of the considerations
mentioned above and of the administrative and social dif-
ficulties involved, the official application of a packet sys-
tem to the civil community is neither desirable nor practi-
cable.

I desire, on behalf of the Committee, to place on record
their high appreciation of the manner in which Dr. Sey-
mour the Secretary to the Committee has assisted in the
preparation of this Note.

Signed on behalf of the Committee,

August, 1919. WALDORF ASTOR.

Venereal Prophylaxis 287

It is not improbable that the station exerts a more co-
gent influence even than the packet in reducing the sex life
of men to the lowest level of bestiality, for in addition to
placing the government in the position of condoning vice
and pandering to it, the station is calculated to rob men
of their last remnant of ordinary decency. All but the
most depraved of men have an instinctive aversion to dis-
playing the crass facts of their sex life publicly, and an
additional element of brazenness is introduced into con-
duct when men fresh from the embraces of their prosti-
tutes frankly meet together at the government clinic. For
medical men under such circumstances to presuppose a high
moral atmosphere as an attribute of the prophylactic sta-
tion, is an admission on their part of blind refusal to
view human nature as it is. This is particularly the case
in the Army since the procedure in giving the treatments
is so simple that it is generally entrusted to men who have
had no medical training at all. The character of the
errand on which the "patients" come to the station is such
that, face to face together, they must take sex adventures
lightly, and while they wait their turn for treatment it
is not to be supposed that their conversation will turn upon
very lofty themes. The slang that has already emanated
from the station, the succinct question as to who has and
who has not "had his shot," the filthy stories of shooting
rat poison into a man and what not, are a sufficient index
of the moral effect of this branch of the government serv-
ice. Then besides, there are the lads who night after night
meet and handle endless streams of fornicators and adulter-
ers without being permitted even the moral concept that
it is the business of the patriotic citizenry of any country
to prevent base conduct — not to pander it. It is to be
doubted whether even the most enthusiastic advocate of
prophylaxis would contemplate with composure the detail
of his own son to this particular duty, and yet to com-

288 The Laws of Sex

pass the administration of the ordinary routine treatments,
very large numbers of young men are needed.

In the case of the venereal clinic it is amazing to wit-
ness the difference in atmosphere, for here the outcome
of the sex adventure has in most instances passed far be-
yond the measure of a joke. Most of the men come to the
clinic in solemn earnest, some of them crushed by the fear
of what the future holds in store for them. The men are
here because they are sick, not because they have been im-
moral, and the clinic therefore savors of the hospital. The
prophylactic station, on the contrary, reeks of the brothel,
for the men there still have the stain of illicit intercourse
upon them, and come the self-confessed violators of a moral
law.

Innocent and guilty alike await their turn in the venereal
clinic. The syphilitic child, the wife reaping the wild oats
that her husband sowed in boyhood days, the man sick of
a vile disease due to the infidelity of the woman he trusted
in wedlock, the prostitute masquerading as a married
woman, the preacher hiding his shame behind a cobweb of
lies. To distinguish innocent from guilty would require
a court of law, not a dispensary clinic, and the doctor
would have to act as advocate or judge, and empanel the
nurses and assistants as a jury before he could go on with
a treatment. Such procedure is wholly out of line with
established precedent, and antagonistic to the humanitarian
principles upon which the science of medicine is based. The
doctor is not fitted by training or experience to act as judge
of human conduct. His business is to cure the sick, and so
long as he honestly follows his calling, he may, witli
righteousness, leave the complicated tangle of human con-
duct to be unravelled by other agencies.

The treatment of patients in the venereal clinic in no
wise standardizes human conduct. The personal problems
are so complex that in the main they are insusceptible of

Venereal Prophylaxis 289

immediate judgments. It is true that the self-confessed
fornicator and adulterer apply for treatment, but even in
these cases the date and nature of the offense may offer
extenuating circumstances. The lapse of time under the law
in the instance of many crimes invalidates the prosecution.
Moreover, to deny treatment even in the most flagrant
cases and to condemn a man to die horribly or to lead out
a maimed existence in payment of his sin, while men guilty
of precisely the same conduct, if by chance they escape dis-
ease, are completely exonerated, is a violation of the or-
dinary precepts of justice so extreme as to be intolerable.
One of the major functions of penalization under the law is
the prevention of wrong doing; revenge, except among sav-
ages, is no longer accepted as justifying punishment. More-
over, a cardinal principle in the administration of justice
is that chance shall, in so far as possible, be eliminated
from the operation of the law. All persons guilty of the
same misconduct under similar circumstances are equally
guilty before the law, and the imposition of penalties upon
their apprehension is not, if there be any show of justice,
left wholly to chance.

It is in this respect that reliance upon venereal disease
as a punishment for venery, violates the fundamental con-
cept of human justice, for chance alone operates in the in-
fliction of the penalty. The most guilty man frequently
goes scot free, while the virtuous or comparatively virtuous
pay to the full measure. The truth is that the contraction
of a venereal disease cannot, according to accepted prin-
ciples of human justice, be regarded in itself as a punishable
offense, for it depends upon chance, not upon volition, and
it is basely unfair to penalize ill fortune.

It is in the conduct leading to infection, not in the in-
fection itself, that society must seek its standards for sexual
ethics. The doctor cannot pursue his calling as clinician,
if at the same time he is forced to order his treatments ac-

290 The Laws of Sex

cording to ethical, not scientific laws. The clinic is not the
proper place to sift out morals, for sheep and goats must
both be treated if they are diseased.

In the prophylactic station, on the contrary, no such
complicated tangle of conduct is involved, for every
man who there makes application comes for the simple rea-
son that he has had illicit sexual intercourse. He is not
ill, he is merely immoral, and though he may subsequently
develop disease, if the state officially recognizes his conduct
without exacting punishment it at the same time declares
that irregular sexual commerce comes within the law. At
the prophylactic station, the doctor need not act as judge,
for all of the applicants without exception are by their
own word guilty of the infraction of a moral law. In any
other province it would be clear that a malefactor could
not be permitted by the state openly to confess his guilt
and still to escape all punishment, for the acceptance of
wrongdoing on the part of one justifies it for all. Thus
it is seen that the prophylactic station, in contrast to the
venereal clinic, definitely standardizes human conduct, for
it gives governmental recognition to fornication and
adultery, and by accepting vice without penalization, prac-
tically sanctions it.

The truth of this statement becomes apparent on con-
sideration of the relation of the prophylactic station to the
fornication law. If a sincere effort were to be made by
the police to enforce the fornication law, the first place
they would have to raid would be the prophylactic station.
They would be obliged to arrest all of the "patients" found
there, and to seize the histories and other data giving the
names and addresses of self-confessed fornicators. In addi-
tion, they would have to watch the station, and to take up
the men as they applied for treatment. Under such pro-
cedure the prophylactic station would soon have to close
its doors for lack of applicants. The venereal clinic, on the
contrary, would not be liable to such a wholesale raid, for

Venereal Prophylaxis 291

the patients coming there would not all be guilty of forni-
cation, and additional information besides their mere ap-
plication for treatment would have to be acquired before
arrests would be in order. Thus the venereal clinic could
continue in operation even with the sincere administration
of a fornication law, while the prophylactic station would
automatically cease functioning if a fornication law were
honestly enforced.

It is this relation of the prophylactic station to the
standardization of conduct that makes it so subversive an
element in the realm of sexual ethics. The prophylactic
station necessarily brings fornication within the law,
for any statute forbidding fornication must be a dead letter
if the station is to continue openly in operation. But the
first step in the control of venereal disease must, according
to all the dictates of hygiene, be to prevent exposure, and
yet this is impossible so long as prophylaxis is frankly ac-
cepted.

In the end, as General Gorgas has indicated, success in
the control of venereal disease depends upon the education
of the individual with regard to sexual conduct. Toleration
of male promiscuity predicates an indefinite perpetuation
of the social evil, and it is from this source that the venereal
diseases flow. As with the girl, so with the boy, the crux
of the matter is the prevention of the initial misstep. Chas-
tity is its own best safeguard, for once infringed, immorality
becomes ever easier and easier. It is because of this that
prophylaxis is so great an impediment to the educational
program. The community must set its stamp of disap-
proval upon masculine vice before the boy will learn in time
that immorality is contrary to his own best interests. The
open toleration of vice leads youth to understand that there
is nothing harmful in it, and the establishment of a double
standard of morals substantiates belief in the sexual neces-
sity for men.

CHAPTEB, XII

THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF VENEREAL

DISEASE

The prospect which is held out by the medical profession
of a limitless period of time during which venereal con-
tacts must be tolerated by the human race is not encour-
aging; neither is it a reality except in the minds of dis-
illusioned persons who have their eyes turned backwards.
Morals are the product of environment and there is no bio-
logical reason for supposing that the male of the genus
homo is any more promiscuous in his potential sexual dis-
position than is the female. In no other species is there any
such disparity between the sexual instincts of the male and
the female. Among the birds, for example, or among the
higher apes, both sexes tend equally toward union with
one mate; among the quadrupeds, on the contrary, where
promiscuity is the rule, both the male and the female are
equally willing to accept transitory sex partners. The
bitch is no less promiscuous than the dog nor is the lion-
ess any more monogamous than the sire of her whelps.

Man is for the time being living under unnatural con-
ditions so far as his sexual life is concerned, but under a
proper economic and educational system, reinforced by a
just standardization of the sexual life of the race, there is
absolutely no question but that men as well as women would
prefer marriage to promiscuity.

The solution of the problem of venereal disease, being,
as it clearly is, amenable to the same general principles of
hygiene that operate in the case of all other communicable
diseases, is dependent upon two factors : first, the prevention

292

The Solution of the Problem of Venereal Disease 298

of contacts between infected and uninfected persons regard-
less of sex and, second, the institution of a system of quar-
antine which will insure proper curative treatment and serve
to protect healthy individuals from contamination by those
suffering with disease.

The Maryland State Board of Health declares in its
Venereal Disease Regulations, "Prostitution is the source
and cause of venereal disease." While this statement can-
not be said to be scientifically exact since the spirochete,
the gonococcus, the strepto-bacillus of Ducrey, and not pros-
titution, cause venereal disease, still it is a recognized fact
that sexual promiscuity is responsible for the continued
spread of venereal infection. Extra-marital sexual inter-
course in so large a proportion of the cases constitutes
exposure to venereal disease that in order to prevent the
contact of infected with uninfected individuals such re-
lationships must, to conform with accepted principles of
hygiene, be placed under the ban. Since between 95 and
100 per cent of all prostitutes have been found upon exam-
ination to be venereal disease carriers, intercourse with them
"may be reasonably suspected" of constituting voluntary ex-
posure to venereal disease and consequently to be counter
to the interests of the public health. As it has been found
impossible for the state successfully to discriminate be-
tween the infectiousness or non-infectiousness of promiscu-
ous men or women all extra-marital sex relationships must
be placed beyond the pale and heavy penalization be in-
stituted for infraction of the fornication law. Since under
this, as under all other criminal laws, only a fraction of the
offenders will be actually apprehended by the police, the
courts must be brought to impose sufficiently drastic sen-
tences to check the practice. Above all the payment of
money or goods for prostitution must be made a major
offense against the state, since commercialized prostitution
will be inevitable so long as it is adequately financed.

The medieval program of "law enforcement," which is

294 The Laws of Sex

now advocated by the United States Public Health Service
and such private organizations as the American Social Hy-
giene Association, and which consists merely of hounding
the more obvious and often the feeble-minded female
offender, must be given over, for the individual prostitute
is merely a passive factor in the scheme. She is seduced at
an early age before her earning capacity along legitimate
lines has been developed, and once "ruined" she is forced to
exploit masculine sexual desire as her sole means to a live-
lihood. The removal of one woman from the trade, through
her reformation or her imprisonment, signifies but the addi-
tion of another woman to the ranks, for the demand created
by men in this business predicates the supply as in any
sort of commerce. The female as well as the male offender
should, of course, be held under the law, but the woman, not
the man, should be recognized as the important states' wit-
ness in the effort to repress prostitution.

The cause of the failure of all vice crusades in the past
lies in the fact that nowhere and at no time has the cam-
paign been directed against the true source of the social evil.
All of the effort has been turned against those who exploit
and those who stimulate masculine sexual desire, whereas, in
point of fact, the campaign should be primarily directed
against those who finance commercialized prostitution. If
the patrons of prostitutes were consistently penalized by
heavy jail sentences instead of "stiff fines," the income of
$164,000,000 now paid annually to the business of pros-
titution would soon be greatly reduced. A term in the
penitentiary would convince the average man that inter-
course with prostitutes was not worth his while and what
is even more to the point it would elucidate this fact in plain
terms to other boys and men.

But it will be contended, it would be practically impos-
sible to obtain evidence sufficient to convict the man. He
pays the prostitute in private, not under the eyes of the
police. This objection is without foundation in the prac-

The Solution of the Problem of Venereal Disease 295

tical administration of the law, for in cases of murder the
evidence is often very obscure, and yet the state does not
for this consideration abrogate the legal recognition of this
crime.

Moreover, it is obvious that it can be no more difficult
to prove that a man pays money for prostitution than
that a woman receives money for the same purpose. Count-
less numbers of women are now serving sentences in lock
hospitals and jails for the offense of prostitution. Doubt-
less in a fair proportion of these cases there has actually
been enough evidence to convince the average court that
the woman has sold the use of her body for money. If the
sort of evidence that is now sufficient to convict a woman
of prostitution were likewise accepted in the case of men,
the police would have absolutely no difficulty in crowding
the court rooms with the patrons of prostitutes. Moreover,
a fairly efficient group of plain clothes policewomen could,
with pitiful readiness, obtain evidence against men which
would be far more specific than most of the present evidence
against prostitutes.

It would, of course, be idle to suggest such a law enforce-
ment program if the administration of the statutes were
to remain where it is, in the hands of men. No class ever
has nor presumably ever will enforce the statutes against
itself. Before the promiscuous demands of men can be
brought under control it will obviously be necessary for
women to participate in the actual machinery of the law
to a far greater extent than they at present do. There
must be women judges and juries. There must be women
in the public prosecutor's office and also women lawyers to
plead before the bar. In the minor courts, where most of
these cases will be first heard, there must be many women,
and above all there must be autonomous bureaus of women
police such as already exist in Washington, D. C., and in
some other cities.

In Los Angeles, Cal., at the present time in the Juvenile

296 The Laws of Sex

Court only women are permitted to be present when certain
cases of seduction are heard. There is a woman judge and
a woman jury, and such men as are essential to a proper
hearing of the case, as witnesses, are required to give their
testimony and then to leave the room. This obviates the
cruel and intolerable procedure followed in most other cities
where a comparatively innocent girl of tender age is forced
to cast aside every precept of ordinary decency and lay
bare the unspeakable details of her intimate life before a
crowd of curious male bystanders.

The work of the Women's Bureau of Metropolitan Police
in the National Capitol has already demonstrated the im-
portance and feasibility of such a force. In addition to
Mrs. Minna C. Van Winkle, the able and courageous chief,
there are about thirty policewomen ranging in age from 21
to 35 years and upward. They are, in the main, college
graduates and many of them have a Master's degree as
well. A sincere desire to do effective public service has
brought most of these women into the work. They operate
independently of the male police force, and this point is
of incalculable importance for when a few policewomen
are merely added to the regular police force, without their
being given the standing of an autonomous bureau, their
work is wholly directed by men and consequently can differ
but little from that of the ordinary force.

The value of the women's bureau lies in the fact that
it permits the introduction of the woman's native point of
view on sexual offenses into the practical administration of
the statutes regulating morality.

The women operate in plain clothes and often are them-
selves solicited for purposes of immorality by men, thereby
facilitating the detection of would-be sex offenders. The}7
usually work in pairs and are at all times privileged to
call upon members of the male police force in making ar-
rests. While such an occupation requires a high degree
of courage and common sense, it is an established fact that

The Solution of the Problem of Venereal Disease 297

women possessing these perquisites can readily be found
to enlist in the service. Through them and through them
alone can the streets be made safe for minors of both sexes,
and only through their efforts can amusement resorts of
questionable character, such as cabarets and dance halls, be
forced to abjure the remunerative enticements which im-
morality offers.

It is beyond question clear that the enforcement of the
statutes regarding morality is safer in the hands of an
autonomous bureau of women police than when left to the
discretion of the ordinary male police force, for men who are
themselves immoral can scarcely be expected to hold the
offense very high in respect to others.

Within the past two years about 60 policemen in Wash-
ington, D. C., have been dismissed from the service for
having a venereal disease contracted while they were mem-
bers of the police force.

One policeman was found with two little girls, one 12 and
the other 14, under very compromising circumstances in
bed in an hotel of doubtful character. He was arrested
at the behest of the women police, but when brought before
the court claimed it was a "frame-up" and was released on
$500 bail. Before he could be brought to trial he disap-
peared, forfeiting his security, and has not been located
since, nor presumably ever will be. This case indicates
the low estimation placed upon sexual offenses by male
courts, for had the charges involved some other crime equally
punishable under the law, collateral in far higher proportion
would have been demanded in face of such incriminating
evidence.

If the practical enforcement of solicitation and fornica-
tion laws were to be left in the hands of such men as this
the results would doubtless be as discouraging as Dr. Welch
and other hygienists anticipate, but fortunately there is no
such necessity. Women are ready and willing to serve the
state as the protectors of youth and they only await the

298 The Laics of Sex

time to come forward when the mothers of the country
come to a realization of the importance of their aid in
guarding the moral integrity of the coming generation.

If the community really desires to minimize venereal
contacts it can readily do so, but the impetus must come
from the General Public, for the self-interest of the medical
profession points in the opposite direction. When con-
tinence comes to be regarded in its true hygienic value, as
the only reliable preventive of venereal disease, the coopera-
tion even of the medical fraternity may not be so very
difficult to secure.

As a preliminary to the rational control of venereal dis-
ease and the protection of the marriage relation, the various
State Boards of Health must be brought to adopt a plan
of quarantine that could be reasonably expected to work
if put in operation. Since the same general principles of
hygiene that have been established in connection with other
communicable diseases doubtless govern venereal disease as
well, these principles should be observed, even though they
are antagonized by the commercialized medical man.

Following the procedure already in effect in connection
with all other communicable diseases, physicians and super-
intendents of hospitals, dispensaries or other institutions
where cases of venereal disease are treated, should be re-
quired to report in writing to the state or local health
authorities, the name and address of any person known
to be infected with venereal disease.

A nurse from the State Board of Health should visit
such patients, as she now does in connection with other
communicable diseases, should investigate the situation and
warn the associates of the patient of the danger of infec-
tion. She should also put into the patient's hands a printed
circular of regulations prescribing care in his habits, sys-
tematic treatment and especially ordering him to refrain
from sexual intercourse or other intimate contacts during
the period of quarantine. The patient should be warned

The Solution of the Problem of Venereal Disease 299

that infringement of these regulations would constitute
breaking quarantine and entail detention and penalization.

The case should then be placed definitely under quaran-
tine by the State Board of Health until curative treatment
is completed.

In addition, the members of the household should be in-
terviewed with regard to the probability of their previous
contamination. Examination of those exposed to infection
should be required and treatment instituted if necessary.
By this means many wives infected with venereal disease
by their husbands might be cured and the danger of oph-
thalmia neonatorum and a syphilitic inheritance be mini-
mized. Servants or other employes infected with venereal
disease would also be promptly detected by their employers
through the intervention of the Board of Health nurse.

This point is of greater importance than many mistresses
of households now realize, for the percentage of infection
among domestic servants, especially in the colored race, is
very high, and the intimacy of their contacts with the family
is such as to render them definitely dangerous when they
are venereal disease carriers. Cases have been brought to
the attention of the writer substantiating this fact beyond
question. One case was reported of a nurse maid with a
fresh case of gonorrhoea who was in attendance upon two
little girls under two years of age. She did the daily laundry
for these children and had every opportunity of trans-
mitting her infection to them. Another was that of a cook
who was suffering from flagrant syphilis. She prepared
all of the food for the family, lived in the same house and
slept in the room with another maid who contracted the
disease from her. Through the infection of this second
woman the mistress of the household learned of the cook's
condition.

Still another case was that of a colored butler who was
married, but who through extra-marital relations contracted
syphilis. He washed the dishes, handled the bread and

300 The Laws of Sex

otherwise had opportunities to disseminate his disease among
the family. As he was in a doctor's employ he went to
the dispensary for treatment and chanced to come under
the care of a physician who knew his employer and re-
ported the case to him. The man was immediately dismissed,
but presumably secured a similar position as butler else-
where.

Another case was that of a chauffeur who lived in the
house of his employer and had his laundry done with that
of the family. The man had a fresh case of gonorrhoea
which was finally detected by the laundress from the stains
on his clothes. In this family there were four children.

The necessity for adequate quarantine regulations is
clearly indicated in specific cases such as these, and yet it
is objected that such a procedure would break up many
homes and lead to divorces on the ground of infidelity.
The invalidity of this objection is evidenced in the experi-
ence of the venereal disease social service department con-
nected with one of the most prominent dispensaries in the
country, where it is reported that serious familial difficulties
result in only about 2 per cent of the cases so handled. The
same department reports that many cases of syphilis have
been avoided and much innocent infection cured and spared
in consequence of the procedure.

In addition to placing venereal disease cases under quar-
antine, the marriage license bureau should be required to
communicate with the Board of Health to ascertain
whether or not an applicant for a marriage license is under
quarantine. In case of affirmative information investiga-
tion should be made of the status of the applicant in order
to avoid denial of the application owing to carelessness of
the physician to report completion of quarantine. Persons
coming from a distance could be permitted to bring an
authorized certificate from their local Board of Health show-
ing them not to be under venereal quarantine.

Such procedure would effectively protect the marriage

The Solution of the Problem of Venereal Disease 301

relation if quacks and the secret self-treatment of venereal
disease through drug stores were outlawed, and if physi-
cians and hospitals were rigidly required, under heavy
penalization for infraction of the law, to report their cases
of venereal disease.

The present situation which permits the state to issue
a marriage license to a person known by the state to have
a venereal disease is so intolerable that it cannot long
continue. It is amazing that even tradition can veil the
gravity of this offense against the public. The marriage
of a venereally infected person with one uncontaminated
may entail death, sterility or mutilation and impose upon
unborn children blindness, syphilis or annihilation. For
the state officially to give sanction to venereal patients to
marry is to participate in a crime of untold magnitude,
especially when in the archives of the Board of Health in-
formation is at hand affirming their condition. It is well
known that no person with syphilis should marry and beget
children unless his disease has been under constant treat-
ment for at least two years, so it is obvious that adequate
quarantine is of incalculable importance in this particular
class of cases.

Moreover, this plan of quarantine would entail no heavy
expense upon the state, for it has been found in connection
with other communicable diseases that a very effective
quarantine can be maintained without detention of the in-
dividual at public expense. Tubercular patients, typhoid
carriers and even scarlet fever cases can be quarantined in
the absence of contagious disease hospitals and in many
instances detention even in the home is not essential. There
is no good reason why the average tubercular patient should
be incarcerated at public expense for the duration of his
disease if his character and his surroundings are such as
to convince the Board of Health that detention is not neces-
sary. With regard to venereal disease the case is even
more striking. If a patient sick of gonorrhoea refrains from

302 The Leaps of Sex

sexual intercourse and observes a few simple hygienic regu-
lations, his bodily presence among his fellows entails very
little danger. The same is true of the syphilitic whom
treatment with Salvarsan very quickly renders innocuous.
The principal danger lies in his marriage and his begetting
children, for they may receive a syphilitic inheritance from
a parent who is not superficially infectious.

Thus it is seen that a very simple procedure if put into
effect would protect marriage and posterity from the most
terrible of all infections.

All that is needed to effect this reform is a determination
on the part of the general public to secure the protection
that it vitally needs from public health officials.

There is no doubt but that the addition of women physi-
cians to the State Boards of Health would greatly facilitate
the institution of a rational system of quarantine against
venereal disease. Women are not drawn, out of their own
experience, as are men, to sympathize unduly with infractors
of the laws of hygiene, and they desire more sincerely than
do most men to place the campaign against venereal disease
on the basis of the control of communicable disease regard-
less of morals. They are also less influenced than are men
by financial considerations in regard to venereal disease for
the treatment of genito-urinary diseases in the male does
not come within their province. The cases of syphilis and
gonorrhoea which they commonly see are innocent infections
which would add to their zeal in establishing adequate pro-
tection for the public health.

In point of fact, current opinion to the contrary not-
withstanding, the establishment of a rational system of
quarantine against venereal disease would relieve the prac-
ticing physician of a painful burden of responsibility. At
the present time he often finds himself in the position of
being the sole possessor of the knowledge essential to pro-
tect some innocent girl from marital contamination. His
patient with an uncured syphilis or gonorrhoea contemplates

The Solution of the Problem of Venereal Disease 303

marriage; the date of the wedding is fixed and postpone-
ment would occasion great embarrassment in the absence
of a sufficient explanation. The doctor forbids marriage
but the patient is obdurate and does not believe that the
danger is as great as science avers ; what is the physician
to do? If he betrays his patient's confidence and informs
the girl or her parents, he violates the professional secret
and in some states may be sued. He also lays himself open
to innumerable surreptitious charges and accusations which
may seriously injure his practice. In addition his patient
may repair to an advertising doctor who for a certain sum
of money will give him a clear bill of health and permit
the marriage to go forward. In the end all that he may
accomplish is to alienate his patient, drive him to a quack
and outrage the feelings of the girl and her parents. Public
knowledge of the danger of venereal disease is so insecure
that many parents merely dub a doctor a "moralist" when
he intervenes in these cases.

If the physician threatens disclosure in order to force
postponement of the wedding, the patient often resorts
to a secret marriage and the doctor learns of the failure
of his plan only when it is too late for his information
to be of avail. In Brieux' Damaged Goods, the plight of
the physician under these circumstances is excellently
phrased. Almost every doctor first or last faces this dis-
tressing contingency and most of them decide after con-
siderable experience that the best that they can do is to
order the man to refrain from marriage and then to let
circumstances take their course.

Parents do not realize how callous and how optimistic
men ordinarily are in the case of their own venereal dis-
ease. In this, as in other things, they believe what they wish
to and when their physicians expound to them the dangers
of marital contamination they are more apt to change
their doctor than to change their plans. Many cases have
been reported to the writer even of medical students who

304 The Laws of Sex

have married with a flagrant syphilitic or gonococcus in-
fection.

In addition there are the numerous instances of married
men who through extra-marital relations contract venereal
disease, and who are then by way of contaminating their
wives. The physician is even more at a loss in these cases
than in those of affianced couples. The husband perhaps
gives his word that he will avoid sex relations with his wife
and then fails to do so. Or while debarred from his wife
he repairs to other women transmitting his infection to
them.

The following cases reported in the Journal of the
American Medical Association of Dec. 25tK, 1920, by La-
capere and Laurent, indicate the complicated personal sit-
uations that the doctor has to face:

I. An officer who had connection with his wife despite
his having a chancre and a positive Wassermann reaction.

II. A young man with erosive syphilitic lesions of the
glans and prepuce, who had repeated contacts each night
for 15 days with a young woman who presented no lesion,
no history of antecedent syphilis and a negative Wasser-
mann reaction.

III. A nursing heredosyphilitic who had exposed two
wet-nurses to infection. One of the two later nursed another
infant. About 11 days after the last nursing of the first
infant she presented a lesion of the nipple, from which
spirochetes were demonstrated by the dark field. The child
she was then nursing was certainly not a heredosyphilitic and
the possibility of infection was certain.

IV. Three officers who had intercourse with one woman
who presented a pigmentary syphilid and numerous mucous
patches of the mouth and vulva.

In addition to the danger of infection through sexual
intercourse, the physician has to consider the risk of his
patient's transmitting the disease to innocent persons
through extra-genital contacts; as by kissing.

The Solution of the Problem of Venereal Disease 305

• Numerous instances are on record of the betrothed com-
municating syphilis to his fiancee by a kiss on the mouth.

In all of these instances the doctor is perhaps, despite
his knowledge, the one least fitted to communicate informa-
tion as to the infectiousness of his patient to those who
might become exposed. His relations with his patient and
his financial interests are involved, and he has not the time
necessary to investigate the situation. Besides which he
is competing in his practice against physicians who may
not be equally conscientious.

If all that he had to do was to send in the name and
address of his patient and then be relieved of the responsi-
bility of protecting innocent persons from contamination,
he would be far better off than he is at the present time.
Especially since he could then explain to his patient that
he was required to report under the law, that such action
did not involve violation of the professional secret, and
that the Board of Health would intervene if the patient
refused to come regularly for treatment.

If the licenses of practitioners who failed to report were
summarily revoked, and if unlicensed practitioners were
subject to heavy penalization, it may legitimately be as-
sumed that within a brief period of time innocent infections
would be far less numerous than they are at the present
trnie. It is by no means difficult to detect unlicensed prac-
titioners of medicine, for their business depends upon ad-
vertising which assures available publicity. At the present
time venereal "quacks" are permitted by most communi-
ties to advertise in the daily papers, to circulate handbills
and to make their offices as conspicuous as they can af-
ford to.

But even granting, for purposes of argument, that private
physicians could not be brought to report their cases of
venereal disease, there would still be the public clinics in
connection with hospitals or with the Boards of Health
where the great majority of cases would come for treatment.

306 The Laws of Sex

Certainly there could be no impediment to reporting cases of
venereal disease coming to these institutions.

Surely the State Board of Health and the United States
Public Health Service will not contend that it is essential to
insure secrecy for their patients, for under their own regula-
tions in forty-four states of the Union they provide now for
the most grueling publicity for certain cases of venereal
disease. When persons "reasonably suspected of having a
venereal disease" are sent from the police court for examina-
tion, every young newspaper reporter has an opportunity for
a salacious story which frequently gets into print, and when
the diagnosis is returned it is entered on the docket where
he who runs may read. Moreover, the mere remanding of
young girls publicly for examination is often sufficient to
ruin their good names even if they are innocent. Several
cases of this sort have occurred in Baltimore, Md., where
the examination of girls arrested on charges of immorality
has been worked up into an interesting story by newspaper
men. One which appeared in the Baltimore Sun as a result
of the Board of Health Regulations was headed "Coiffure
Causes Arrest," and the story ran on to tell how a certain
Lillian had been taken up because she had cut off her hair
and had been sent to the Mercy Hospital for examination.
Whether she was diseased or not her reputation was per-
manently ruined.

Thousands and thousands of venereal disease cases now
come annually to clinics operated by the State Boards
of Health, and in these, at least, there is no excuse for
neglecting quarantine.

In connection with tuberculosis or any other communicable
disease there is inevitably a certain minimum of publicity
that is unpleasant and inconvenient to the patient and his
family. In venereal disease, as in all others this has to be
faced in view of the necessity of the protection of the public
health. Certainly it is better that a venereal patient should
suffer the embarrassment of having his disease made known

The Solution of the Problem of Venereal Disease 307

to his wife or sweetheart than that he should contaminate
them and his unborn children with syphilis or gonorrhea.

An unavailing effort has been made to escape from the
dilemma by requiring a certificate of health based upon a
physical examination as a prerequisite to the issuance of
a marriage license. In the states where this experiment has
been tried the results have been most unsatisfactory as
might have been surmised in advance. The examinations
have been insufficient or certificates of health have been sold
by physicians for $2.50 each, or the appropriations made
by the state for this purpose have been inadequate to repay
the time of competent medical men. At the outset it is
clear that such a procedure would involve a vast amount
of waste effort and could not be other than a dead letter
law. The great majority of women and a considerable
number of the men who apply for a marriage license have
never even exposed themselves to venereal disease. There
is not one chance in a million that they are venereal disease
carriers and the state can neither successfully nor ration-
ally demand that they shall submit to the expense and in-
convenience of a physical examination, merely in order to
detect the comparatively small number who are guilty of
sexual offenses and who have thereby contracted venereal
disease.

Carefully nurtured girls would find it an intolerable af
front to their modesty to expose their genital organs for
examination before securing a marriage license, and their
parents, and in most cases their physicians, would under-
stand their point of view too well to cooperate in any such
demand.

If any inconvenience is to be encountered surely those
who are guilty of offenses against morality and the law
should pay the price rather than those who have lived con-
tinently and who have thereby earned immunity.

The principal benefit that would redound from the in-
stitution of a rational plan of quarantine against venereal

308 The Laws of Sex

disease would be to place the responsibility for the preven-
tion of innocent infections upon the medical profession and
especially upon the public health authorities. The members
of the State Board of Health would then be unable to salve
their consciences by transferring their responsibility to the
Police Department, and private practitioners and the
superintendents of institutions where cases of venereal dis-
ease are treated would know in advance the inevitable re-
sults of failure to report their cases. Since practical use
would be made of the reports there would be a greater
incentive toward turning them in and by degrees the
conscience of the medical profession would develop in this
regard, as has been the case in tuberculosis.

Twenty-five years ago medical men were almost, as re-
luctant to report their cases of tuberculosis as they are
at the present time to report their cases of venereal dis-
ease. They feared publicity for their patients and they
failed to recognize the importance of enlisting the aid of
the public health authorities in controlling this infection.

The diffusion of knowledge among the general public as
to the communicable nature and prevalence of tuberculosis,
coupled with the self-sacrificing devotion of some few medical
men, resulted in a widespread popular demand for protec
tion against this disease.

It may be anticipated that a similar development awaits
the problem of venereal disease. Already the first steps
have been taken, for the age-old conspiracy of silence has
been broken through. Knowledge of the communicable
nature and prevalence of venereal disease is gradually be-
coming current and women are daily hearing of the dangers
that they and their children face.

But before communities can be persuaded to act and
courts to convict, a more adequate estimate of the magnitude
of the offense of masculine sexual incontinence must be
brought home to the general public. Today most men and

The Solution of the Problem, of Venereal Disease 309

many women regard masculine immorality as an indiscre-
tion, to be deplored, perhaps, but not to be taken too seri-
ously. Boys will be boys, wild oats are the birthright of
youth and must in charity be forgiven. Every man was
young once and he recalls his own temptations. Still, mas-
culine incontinence is responsible for an amazing list of ills.
Grouped together they present a more terrible burden to
the race than flows from all other crimes committed by
humanity. The social significance of the institution of
prostitution has not yet permeated the conscience of the
race. "The damage resultant from prostitution,'* says
Mr. Flexner, "is equal to the ravages of a great war."
Manifold and obscure, hidden behind the mask of social
conventions, the evils resultant from commercialized pros-
titution stretch like the arms of a cancer throughout the
social organism. The innocent bride pays with her life
for the sexual indiscretions of her husband. The sterile
and invalid wife robbed of her precious hope of maternity
wears out a vacant and complaining existence as the price
of her mate's pre-marital infidelity. The still-born child,
the syphilitic child, the imbecile and the epileptic all owe
their inheritance to commercialized prostitution. Eyes that
are blind from birth, tongues that cannot speak, and ears
that cannot hear, these are the heritages of incontinence.
The feeble-minded, the half-breed, are the results of a
moment's unconsidered passion. The insane asylums,
packed to the doors with their pitiful wreckage of travestied
humanity, cry aloud that masculine incontinence is not
an indiscretion, but that it is the most terrible of all sins
against humanity. Men have taken their most precious
treasure, the germ plasms of the race, and for a moment's
idle pleasure they have blasted and destroyed it. They
have taken innocent girls, potential wives and mothers, and
through the institution of prostitution they have trans-
formed them into whores and drug fiends, creatures so foul

310 The Laws of Sex

that they seem scarcely human. In addition, all manner
of sexual perversions spring from commercialized prosti-
tution.

The financial burden to the community also must not
be overlooked. Millions upon millions of dollars are poured
out every year to pay not only for prostitution but for
venereal clinics, for jails and for asylums for the feeble-
minded, the epileptic and the insane. The economic and
social waste is monstrous and at the root of it all is the man
who pays his dollar or so to a prostitute and goes on his
way without regret. The social significance of incontinence
must be judged in terms of its results to the social order,
and must be penalized in proportion therewith, if the man
who pays for prostitution and is in the end responsible
for its perpetuation is ever to be made to realize the social
significance of his act.

As in the case of theft or other offenses the punishment
of the individual often seems out of all proportion to his
sin, so in the case of bribery toward prostitution the pun-
ishment of the man must be set so high that it will often
seem disproportionate to his moral guilt. The servant who
steals an old coat from her mistress, the clerk who
steals $25 or $50 from his employer's till is often given
a term of years in jail or penitentiary. Such penalties are
clearly out of all relation to the moral obliquity of the act,
and yet if private property is to be respected the courts
must punish heavily the few offenders whom the law actually
apprehends. The object of punishment in civilized com-
munities is deterrence, not revenge, and the penalty which
is exacted from the individual for any anti-social act serves
to elucidate to other human beings under temptation the
racial significance of such conduct. The individual penal-
ized is always the scapegoat for the rest, for few, if any,
individuals ever commit acts which at the moment they
feel to be seriously reprehensible. Forgery, theft, even
murder, are generally committed by individuals who feel

The Solution of the Problem of Venereal Disease 311

themselves thoroughly justified in their acts, yet the state
must penalize the individual sufficiently heavily to make
clear to mankind that such conduct is incompatible with
the welfare of the race. In the punishment of the individual,
the social results of any act are eptomized and framed so
that they are comprehensible to the inexperienced.

The ultimate objective in the campaign against venereal
disease must be to minimize contacts beween infected and
uninfected persons for upon such contacts depends the con-
tinued existence of syphilis, gonorrhrea and chancroid in the
human race.

To this end the rigid enforcement of a law against forni-
cation is indispensable as well as the institution of a ra-
tional program of quarantine. All compromise measures,
such as regulation and prophylaxis, while they may to the
inexperienced appear to facilitate the control of venereal
disease, in reality operate in the reverse direction, for they
breed a false sense of security, and stultify the demand for
the repression of sexual promiscuity wherein is the root of
venereal disease.

Strangely enough venereal disease indicates in a crude
way the natural boundaries of honorable sexual conduct.
Loveless matings, based upon gross physical appetites and
venery, form its breeding ground, whence it is carried into
genuine relationships as the physical counterpart of the
spiritual pollution that has been endured.

The man or the woman who succumbs to lust suffers a
defilement which mars the perfection of later love ; memories,
associations, personal experience cannot be laid aside at
will. No more can the resposibility for participation in the
subversive commerce of prostitution. The community may
require no penalty, but nature is not so lenient and the
seeds that have been sown will one day come to harvest.

The problem of venereal disease will reach solution when
man learns to observe the natural laws of sex in his attempt
toward happiness.

CHAPTER XTJI

SEX AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION

Probably the only group of individuals who today suffi-
ciently realize the importance of sex in education is that
of the psycho-analysts. To them come the men and women
whose lives have been wrecked as a result of injuries in-
flicted upon the sexual life before the period of conscious
memory and from the analysis of their patients physicians
and pedagogues learn the value of early training as A pro-
phylactic against later disorders.

One of the great contributions that Freud, Jung and
their followers have made to the science of pedagogy is their
demonstration of the pervasiveness of sex throughout the
life of the individual. Until within very recent years parents
and teachers have assumed that the sex life of the indi-
vidual was non-existent before the time of puberty. The
manifestation of sex interest or sex desires in young chil-
dren was regarded as unnatural and obscene and was pun-
ished more or less severely, thereby providing the base for
repressions which would later appear as obstinate neuroses.

As a result of the observations of the psycho-analysts
it is now known that the sexual life is at no time dissociated
from existence, and that from earliest infancy onwards
sexual instincts whose direction may be of determining im-
portance in later life are to be reckoned with.

The Freudian definition of sex is far broader than the
concept ordinarily associated with this word.

Freud himself says: "It cannot have remained unper-
ceived by the physician that psycho-analysis is accustomed
to suffer the reproach that it extends the term sexual far

312

Sex as a Factor m Education 313

beyond the customary extent. The complaint is just,
whether it may be applied as reproach may not be dis-
cussed here. The term sexual includes far more in psycho-
analysis; it goes both below and above the popular sense.
This extension is justified genetically; we reckon with the
'sexual life' also all play of tender emotions, which have
sprung from the source of primitive sexual impulses, both
when these impulses experience an inhibition of their orig-
inal sexual goal, or have exchanged this goal for another
one, no longer sexual. We speak, therefore, preferably of
psycho-sexuality, putting emphasis on the fact that we
should not overlook nor undervalue the mental factor of
sexual life. We use the word sexuality in the same com-
prehensive sense as the German language does the word
'Liebe' (love)."1

Sex in this broad sense is already observable in the life
of the very young and exhibits itself not only in pleasure
provided through the genital organs or other exogenous
zones, but in the love of parents or brothers and sisters
and especially in adolescence in vague yearnings and nebu-
lous desires which phrase themselves as art or religion.

According to Freud, all of the higher emotions such as
sympathy, artistic enjoyment, altruism and religion de-
velop from sexual desires as opposed to the ego instincts.
When one considers the long evolutionary path traveled
by germ plasm in its development from a single living cell
into the complex multicellular organism called man, this
classification of the instincts loses its seemingly exaggerated
character. Doubtless the first impulses toward altruism
and love came into being coincidently with the instinct of
sex. Among the lower animals, for example, the sexual
origin of the impulse toward love is manifest, as in the
maternal and mating instincts. Apart from the sexual life
the ego instinct obviously predominates among the lower or-
ders. Since man is, but by gradations, removed from his

1 Freud, fiber Wilde Ptychoanalyse. Zentralblatt, 1910.

314 The Laws of Sex

winged and four-footed progenitors, in the evolutionary
scale, there would seem no good reason why the origin of
his emotions should be supposed to differ widely from that
of his less developed kin. The physical origin of the emo-
tions has been sufficiently demonstrated by the psychologists
to eliminate the old religious concept of the sharp differen-
tiation between mind and matter. This view has been con-
sistently supported by the study of the neuroses, where the
interplay of the physical and the mental is so close as to
defy arbitrary separation. The paralysis of the neurotic,
although it finds its base in the disordered psyche is no less
real and frequently no less obstinate than the paralysis
which can be accounted for on purely physical grounds.

Within the brief span of his single life, from conception
until death, man appears to run the gamut of evolution.
As the embryo is transformed through the various phases
of evolution from a single celled organism into the living
child, so it appears his emotional life also progresses over
old paths worn smooth by countless generations. Before
birth he fulfills the cycles of the lower orders — in infancy
and early childhood he experiences again the crude and
spontaneous emotions of primitive man, and even his native
abilities and ambitions at various age periods typify the
race at certain eras. For example, his ability to conquer
precise accents in language appears to correspond to the
order of racial development when speech was first acquired
by man. When this age is passed he can no longer acquire
the perfect control of language that a younger child achieves
without conscious effort.

It may well be that stultification of the emotions arising
from the libido in any age epoch may predicate a corre-
sponding lack of emotional facility in later years. For,
as the muscles require exercise in youth to achieve full de-
velopment, or the vocal organs practice for linguistic attain-
ment, so the emotional nature needs expression and not re-
pression in order to expand to normal proportions.

Sex as a Factor m Education 815

If the parent or teacher merely overlooks the sex life
of the child and fails to utilize the interests and desires aris-
ing from this source, as a means toward development, an
incomparable opportunity may be thrown away and im-
pulses which might with proper training have been turned
to beneficent ends may be transformed into evil tendencies.
If altruism, sympathy, and all of the higher emotions are,
as Freud believes, rooted in sexual desires, the means for
the stimulation and sublimation of these instincts is a pro-
found and primary problem of pedagogy. For example,
the love of animals, especially of young and helpless ani-
mals, which is almost universal among children, and which
Freud would maintain is of definitely sexual origin, might,
if given opportunity for full expression, later result in an
enlarged altruism toward the weaker members of the race.
Or the desire for knowledge of the biological facts of re-
production if properly satisfied might incite an added inter-
est in science in later years or conduce to the wholesome
love of nature study. The relation of physical exercise
toward aberrant sexual practices, such as masturbation,
should also be thoroughly understood in order to adapt
the daily life of the child to his normal development.

In his synthetic sexual theory Freud holds that the
sexual instinct or "libido" is composed of a number of par-
tial instincts which appear in varying constancy in the
child.2 "The sexual instinct of a child reveals itself as
highly composite; it permits a separation into many com-
ponents which arise from various sources. The instinct is,
above all, still independent of the function of reproduction
in the service of which it will later take its place. It serves
for the attainment of various kinds of pleasurable sensa-
tions which we include together according to analogies and
connections as sexual pleasure. The chief source of the
infantile sexual pleasure is the suitable excitation of cer-
tain particularly irritable body zones which are in addi-

* Drei AbJiandlungen zur SexuaUheorie.

316 The Laws of Sex

tion to the genitals, the mouth, anus, urethral orifice and
in particular also the skin and other sensory surfaces. Since
in this first phase of the child's sexual life, the gratification
is found on his own body and is oblivious of a foreign
object, we call this phase, according to a word coined by
Havelock Ellis, 'autoerotism.' Those places which are im-
portant for the gaining of sexual pleasure we call erogenous
zones. The pleasure of sucking of the smallest children is
a good example of such an autoerotic gratification from an
erogenous zone. The first scientific observer of this phe-
nomenon, a pediatrist named Lindner of Budapest, has
already rightly interpreted this as sexual gratification
and written exhaustively of its transition into other and
higher forms of sexual activity. Another sexual gratifi-
cation of this period of life is the masturbationary excita-
tion of the genitals, which has so great importance for
the later life, and in many individuals is never completely
overcome. Besides these and other autoerotic activities
there come to expression very early in the child those in-
stinctive components of the sexual pleasure, or as we pre-
fer to call it, the libido, which presuppose another person
(than self) as object.

"These instincts appear as contrasting pairs, as active
and passive; as the most important representatives of this
group I name the pleasure of inflicting pain (sadism)
with its passive opposite (masochism), and the active and
passive pleasure in looking from the former of which,
later, the desire for knowledge branches off, as from the
latter the impulse to artistic and dramatic exhibition. Other
sexual activities of the child come already under the view-
point of the object-choice, in which another person becomes
of chief importance. This person owes her importance
originally to the consideration for the instinct of self-preser-
vation. The distinction of sex plays in this infantile pe-
riod no preeminent role; thus you can assign to erery child

Sex as a Factor m Education 317

without doing him an injustice a bit of homosexual
endowment."3

Whether one agrees with Freud or not in his nomencla-
ture, the fact remains that in the young child a complex
group of physical and emotional instincts exists which can-
not be safely treated by the parent or teacher merely by
neglect. Sympathetic insight and a balanced understand-
ing of the plastic psycho-physical make-up of the child is
the first essential of the true educator.

Parents who would lead their child to the full develop-
ment of his personality must recognize the child as he is,
not as they theoretically imagine him to be.

One point which the psycho-analysts have elucidated with
regard to human psychology which is of great pedagogic
interest is the relation of the so-called normal and abnor-
mal in the psychic life. Formerly it was supposed that
a considerable gap separated the sane from the insane mind.
Now it is known that, barring disorders that have their
source in organic lesions, no such clear-cut differentiation
exists. All minds are tainted more or less with illusons,
and insanity, save in organic disease, is rather a matter of
degree than of kind. A repression which may never dem-
onstrate itself as a definite neurosis may still warp the life
of the individual and render him comparatively ineffective in
his journey through the world.

One of the pedagogic advantages of the psycho-analysis
of neurotics is that it presents to the investigator in suf-
ficiently exaggerated form to be observable, the ordinary
facts of human psychology. The analysis of the man suf-
fering with an anxiety neurosis or melancholia due to fixa-
tion on the mother demonstrates with extraordinary clarity
the role that relations between parents and children may
play.

• Freud, fiber Prychoanalyte,

318 The Laws of Sex

Many mothers do not know that exaggerated tenderness
on their part toward their children, constant caressing,
anxious solicitude and the like, may lead to a dependency
which may later seriously impair the happiness and efficiency
of the adult man.

The child who sleeps in his mother's room, who is fre-
quently taken into her bed and is the object of undue
demonstrativeness or anxiety, is frequently the patient in
later years who suffers from a neurosis due to what is
called the OEdipus complex.

Under this term recalling the old saga of CEdipus who
killed his father and married his mother, Freud defines the
erotic relation between mother and child. This he maintains
is of sexual origin representing incestuous desire, and is
at the bottom of every neurosis. It appears also with
changed sex roles in women, when it is called the Electra
complex.

While many do not agree with Freud that fixation on
the parents, or incest repression, is the nuclear complex of
all neuroses, still there is sufficient evidence to serve as a
warning against over-indulgent parental affection.

On the other hand, coldness on the part of the parent,
with the refusal of sympathy and comprehending love, may
result in the introversion of the child, due to the damming
back of erotic impulses. Hatred of his fellows, eccentricity,
aloofness and life weariness, sometimes culminating in sui-
cide, develops ; and when punishment is added, the sadist
or the masochist, potential in some degree in all human
beings, may come to the fore. Children who take pleas-
ure in tormenting animals or playing cruel jokes upon their
playmates are often simply the victims of this introversion.
Their evil characteristics are merely accentuated by harsh
treatment, and when this is continued the fully developed
sadist or masochist may appear, for whose pleasure the
scourge has become part of the paraphernalia of the brothel.

Much of the violent cruelty of parents or teachers toward

Sex as a Factor m Education 319

children or of guards toward prisoners, or of others in
authority toward their underlings, is of definite sadistic
origin, resultant from the damming back of erotic impulses
in early childhood. The father who beats his son with
a leather thong until the blood flows, or the jailer who
tortures his prisoners with thumbscrews or similar devices
often merely represents the epitome of thwarted sexual in-
stincts. Given a different environment in early childhood,
facilitating the expression of their instincts toward love,
these monsters could in the main be transformed into ordi-
nary altruistic individuals.

Especially in regard to corporal punishment the sexual
element should not be forgotten. Many analyses of neu-
rotics disclose the fact that the ordinary spanking often
gives rise both to sexual desire and its satisfaction. The
orgasm is frequently first experienced in connection with
corporal punishment, sowing the seed for masochistic per-
versions of various kinds. The onlookers also may suffer
traumata resulting in sadistic propensities. The great in-
terest which children take in the whipping of some mem-
ber of the family and the almost grotesque delight that
they sometimes show at his physical distress unmasks the
sadist that lurks even in kind-hearted individuals.

The evil effects of corporal punishment are so profound
and so intimately associated with perversions and fixations
of various kinds that it is not too much to recommend its
complete abrogation in behalf of gentler methods of dis-
cipline.

No parent desires to pander to the sadistic or maso-
chistic propensities of his children, or to arouse a passion
of hatred which may later exhibit itself as a profound neu-
rosis, yet this is often what he does when he whips a child.

Especially in connection with masturbation punishment
of any sort is to be viewed askance, for it is a direct affront
to the sexual life of the individual, which is a very delicately
balanced mechanism. It is said by psycho-analysts of wide

320 The Laws of Sex

experience that probably 90 per cent of girls and boys mas-
turbate in early youth.4 The great majority of these chil-
dren give up the habit with little or no effort, and the very
memory of the practice may disappear from the sphere
of the conscious.

In some cases, however, the habit persists with increas-
ing intensity until it becomes a veritable obsession, leading
the individual to withdraw more and more into himself, to
abjure the company of his associates, and to brood upon
the immediate sexual pleasure which can be so cheaply se-
cured. It is in this class of cases especially that the threats
of pseudo-physicians or the harsh treatment often accorded
by parents or teachers is liable to produce permanent
damage.

It is pitiful to hear of the innumerable instances where
unfounded statements have led to year-long suffering among
boys and young men who could not of their own volition
rid themselves of the habit of masturbation. Oskar Pfister
cites an example of the kind of literature that is frequently
circulated with regard to onanism, in a pamphlet written
by Pastor N. Hauri, of Switzerland, which states: "When
a young man secretly does all kinds of things whereby he
stains his body, his health also suffers grievous injury.
He becomes tired and sleepy, his mind is weakened, he loses
all elasticity and power of will. Ever less can he resist
the evil pleasure. Step by step his evil thoughts pursue
him to ruin. He loses the joy of work. He becomes in
appearance and behavior like an old man and finally any
disease may get him which he would otherwise have easily
withstood and carries him off in his early years. How
many a young man has already sunk into an early grave
in this way and others have become miserable and sickly
or blue and melancholy."

It is not unusual to find in the literature of quacks or
patent medicine men statements to the effect that onanism
4 Freud. Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexvaltheorie.

Sex as a Factor m Education

leads to insanity, epilepsy, St. Vitus's dance or a character-
istic facial expression. Such abounding falsehoods are ac-
cepted by the young onanist with dreadful faith, leading
in some cases to severe neuroses, suicide or persistent melan-
cholia.

The probability is that masturbation, even when prac-
ticed with great frequency and over long periods of time,
has few if any serious results other than a tendency to
introversion and a certain falling off of self-respect due
to the individual's inability to master his own will. Many
persons have masturbated three or four times a day for
periods of years without exhibiting any serious physical re-
sults. The groundless statements of those who have opposed
masturbation and the false circulars of the patent medicine
men are beyond doubt responsible for most of the disor-
ders associated with onanism. Suicide in adolescents has
been traced back to these untrue dogmas, and neurotic
blindness, paralysis and hysteria have been found associated
with brutal punishment inflicted by parents or teachers
upon the discovery of onanism in the child.5

While the exaggerated horror of masturbation appears
to have no counterpart in actual fact, it is still clearly
undesirable to permit the child to become invested with an
unproductive habit that he cannot break at will. Espe-
cially in adolescence, when the body needs all of its poten-
tial resources for development and growth, the depletion
of the system by the waste of the nervous and physical
energy involved in frequent masturbation is plainly contra-
indicated. As with all other habits fixation results from repi-
tition, so with masturbation the longer it is practiced the
more difficult it is to bring it under control. The habit
which in a child of five or six years might yield readily
enough to suitable treatment presents a very different prog-
nosis when it has been practiced until the tenth or twelfth
year.
•Pfister. The Psychoanalytic Method.

The Laws of Sex

Physical defect of the genital organs is sometimes ac-
countable for onanism, and the earlier in the life of the
child the defect can be removed the less likely is a psychic
trauma to supervene. Children should be inspected soon
after birth to ascertain whether the genetalia are normal
or whether operative interference is indicated. Adhesions
should be immediately broken up and circumcision per-
formed, if necessary, within the first year. Postponement
of the procedure often causes serious derangement of the
sexual life, which is easily avoided by prompt and intelli-
gent care. All children should of course be trained from
earliest life to habitual cleanliness of the genetalia.

In persistent cases of onanism, especially when the child
tends to transmit his habit to other children, the assistance
of a competent psycho-analyst should be invoked. In mas-
turbation as in all other aberrations of sexual desire the
most important prophylactic is a strong bond of sympa-
thetic understanding between parent and child. If from
earliest infancy the child is accustomed to speak frankly of
his sexual life to his mother the difficulty of detecting onan-
ism in its formative period and of aborting it is greatly
diminished. This is particularly the case when there are
several children in the family, for they tend to practice
onanism in one another's presence, and reports of the pro-
cedure are almost certain to come back if the displeasure
of the mother is not foreseen^ at the mere mention of sexual
matters.

Ordinarily, before the habit has become fixed, a clear and
frequently repeated statement of the primary purpose of
the sex organs in reproduction, coupled with the warning
that abuse of the genetalia depletes the vigor of the indi-
vidual and tends to inhibit his best development, will suffice
to prevent the establishment of onanism. Children are
particularly prone to adopt the standards of conduct of
other people, and if they know that their parents regard the
practice of masturbation as unwise and injurious they in-

Sex as a Factor m Education • 328

cline to assimilate this point of view. On the other hand,
if all that they hear is the high estimation placed on this
habit by their playmates or by older perverts they tend to
adopt this opposite view and govern their conduct accord-
ingly. Sex power is so intimately and so instinctively re-
lated to self-respect in the minds of the young that its
exhibition in erections or "jerking off" creates a desire
for emulation which can only be offset by careful reitera-
tion of the undesirability of these practices.

If the mother holds the confidence of her child in regard
to his sexual life, and she can only do so through abso-
lute frankness from his earliest years, she can serve most
effectively as a bulwark against the fixation of this habit.
Arbitrary condemnation, intolerance of frequent relapses
or lack of sympathy with unsuccessful efforts to stop the
practice inevitably drives the child to secrecy and invali-
dates the mother's influence. It is as a sort of vicarious
conscience, a near-by, warm, mundane divinity, to whom
confessions may frankly be made without the possibility
of misunderstanding, that the mother most successfully
stands between her child and the persistence of onanism.

Experience in the psychiatric clinic soon indicates the
importance and the comparative rarity of this sort of ten-
der comprehending care of the young child, for, contrary
to current opinion, the majority of psychic breakdowns
occur in young people and are the direct result of disor-
dered sexual lives. Re-education, which is much more dif-
ficult and tedious than right education, is then called for
to atone for neglect and oversight on the part of the
parents during the child's earlier years. It may well be
said that before children can receive proper education as
to their sexual lives parents themselves must be re-educated
with regard to the life values of psycho-sexuality. Most
of the present generation has grown up under the archaic
opinion that sex was a machination of the evil one; that
it was designed to tempt and degrade a frail humanity

324 The Laws of Sex

which would be more god-like if it abjured this function
altogether. The celibacy of the priesthood and the sister-
hoods and the current view that the rites of marriage in
some transcendental way mitigate the carnal sin of lust, in-
dicates the attitude that even today hides itself in the
unconscious. Marriage is called "the holy state of matri-
mony," but decency is outraged when the significance of
matrimony is dwelt upon. The wedding day and the pres-
ence of a lovely infant in the young mother's arms after
the puerperal period occasion congratulations and even
charming poems, but the sex relation predicated in mar-
riage and the enceinte woman too often give rise to em-
barrassment, foul jokes or obscene thoughts. Many women
who suppose themselves to be clean minded in the extreme
instinctively change the subject if they have been speaking
together of an expectant friend and a young person enters
the room. The idea is still prevalent that it is improper
to let children see an infant when it is "too young," un-
less they belong to the same family, when the stork or
the doctor story is frequently invoked to conceal the shock-
ing facts of its origin. Many parents find it impossible
to phrase to their children, even in a wholly impersonal way,
the physiological processes of sexual intercourse. They
are embarrassed beyond endurance when their children ask
for a detailed description of the sexual act, and often their
vocabulary is insufficient. For people so obsessed with the
sense of shame in sex to attempt to communicate a normal
point of view to the young is plainly inappropriate. The
pornographic association of the word sex must be dispelled
from their minds before parents will be fit guides for their
children in the most complex and the most sacred of all
life's relations.

Few people realize the absolute purity of the unstained
childish mind with regard to sexual matters. To the young
child whose mind has escaped defilement all parts of the
body are clean, and the sex act is little more than an em-

Sex as a Factor m Education 325

brace which when once explained is of curiously little inter-
est to him. The fact that children are conceived as a
result of the mutual love of the parents appears to him
in its true proportions as beautiful, and the birth of a
child seems to him no more matter for pretense and debas-
ing fiction than the laying of eggs in the nest by the mother
bird. Knowledge of the physical bond between mother and
child brings him the nearer to his own mother, and the
thought of the physical sacrifice she has made for him
heightens rather than detracts from his admiration for
motherhood, A realization of his own potential power of
parenthood increases his respect for his own body and
interprets on true grounds the reason for his maintaining
his own physical integrity. All of the facts of sex physiol-
ogy are accepted by the clean childish mind with far less
prurience than the average adult mind accepts the facts
o? the reproductive cycle of the flowers. It is no more
obscene in his estimation for his father, whom he loves,
to have given his life seed to his mother than for the wind
or the birds or the wandering bees to carry the pollen
that fertilizes the flower. The story of reproduction is as
wonderful as a fairy tale to a child, and not very much
more interesting. Ordinarily it is necessary to repeat the
story over and over again at intervals to bring the facts
home and to satisfy the child's recurrent curiosity. He will
listen for a time and then lose interest and later will re-
turn with the request to tell it all over again, like Cinderella,
from the very beginning. The lightness of the impress that
the facts presented in this way make upon his mind is
evidenced by his forgetting them many times, and return-
ing without embarrassment with a repetition of his ques-
tions.

In intelligent children, especially among those endowed
with temperament and imagination, curiosity with regard
to the origin of life and the sex organs develops very early.
At three or four years their powers of observation have

326 The Law* of Sex

usually progressed far enough to give rise to definite ques-
tions. These opportunities should be grasped not only to
transmit the information asked for, but also to lay the
broad foundation for a sane and altruistic attitude toward
the relation of the sexes. The significance of marriage as
predicating the home and the protection of little children
should be made clear, and the association of the sex organs
with love and reproduction should be dwelt upon. The
conception of the genetalia merely as adjuncts to the ex-
cretory organs is unwholesome, and when allied to a sense
of shame such as is ordinarily inculcated in connection with
these functions is perversive of a normal attitude of mind.
It is irrational to teach that the sexual organs are shame-
ful and unclean and then to expect the childish mind to
regard these organs with the respect that their purpose in
the individual and racial life demands. Modesty and shame
are by no means one and the same thing, although they
are often confused and frequently counterfeit one another.
Modesty arises from self-respect and a sense of ultra-
worthiness, whereas shame springs from fear of disclosing
that which is repulsive or vile.

The child should be taught to honor his own body, to
revere its beauty and to desire its perfect development.
Prudery is but the veil for an evil mind and contaminates
him whom it touches. In all children there is a native
impulse to view the naked body, and when this is repressed
in childhood it frequently reappears in later life as a sort
of fetish. The large and lucrative business that is car-
ried on in the sale of pornographic pictures of nude women
indicates the extent of these repressions.

The story of life can be quite frankly told to the small-
est child without the least danger of its alarming or dis-
illusioning him. As it is without doubt the most wonder-
ful and beautiful of nature's mysteries, and is universal in
the living world of which he is part, he should hear of it

Sex as a Factor m Education 327

first from those who love him and who can interpret its
true meaning to him.

First impressions are curiously tenacious, and if the child
learns the truth before he meets the inevitable falsehoods
he will be to some extent insured against contamination.
Moreover, knowledge disarms curiosity, and the child who
is informed will be less vulnerable prey to evil-minded chil-
dren or older persons who often delight in scaring the virgin
mind with salacious stories. Knowledge of sex is so in-
tensely desired by children that they will consort with per-
sons whom they know to be unworthy companions if they
believe that only from such sources can the information be
secured.

In telling the facts of reproduction there need be no fear
that the young child will assimilate more knowledge than
is good for him. In the first place, in the normal physiol-
ogy of sex if properly presented there is nothing which
could lead to evil thoughts or practices, and in the sec-
ond place, his comprehension will be found to be surpris-
ingly limited. Most young children are far less interested
in the relation between the sexes, which concerns them little,
than in the subject of their immediate origin and their
relation to their mothers.

Before the child enters school or plays without super-
vision with other children, he should be fully informed as
to the normal physiology of reproduction. He should also
understand the objections to masturbation, for the prac-
tice is so common among school children that he will
inevitably be enlightened, and then will be less open to
temptation if he knows in advance the evil nature of these
practices.

It is unfortunate that mothers do not know more uni-
versally the dangerous situations that confront the child
between the fifth and the tenth years. Children of this
age have a sexual vocabulary of their own, words handed

328

down presumably for centuries from one generation of chil-
dren to another, and even among the most cultured and
wealthy families it is not very unusual for little ones of
seven or eight to have "lovers" of about their own age
with whom they have sexual intercourse, sometimes in the
presence of others. One case that came to the writer's at-
tention was that of a little girl of seven years belonging
to a most refined family who had intercourse with her
older brother and with several of their friends. Another
was that of a group of five children, two girls and three
boys, living near one another in an aristocratic neighbor-
hood, who repeatedly had intercourse with one another and
boasted of it to other children. The oldest of these was
a boy of ten years. Still another case was that of a girl
of nine years, living under apparently very sheltered sur-
roundings, who took a curious pride in having many
"lovers."

One little girl of eight years went one morning to play
with a small friend, but was told by the brother who opened
the door that the child had gone out with her mother. The
boy of thirteen years invited the child in, promptly locked
the door, and then after making indecent proposals to
her pursued her through the house with the evident inten-
tion of assaulting her. The child finally escaped by flee-
ing into a bathroom, locking the door and climbing out
of the window.

In all of these cases the parents supposed that their
children were completely "innocent" of any sex knowledge.

Wherever children congregate together it may be as-
sumed in advance that illicit information will be available
and even situations such as those described come to the
knowledge or experience of an astonishing number of young
children.

The refusal to answer the child's questions frankly or
the substitution of legends for the truth, as in the stork,
the cabbage, the angel or the doctor fables, is most injuri-

Sex as a Factor in Education 329

ous, for in the first place it tends to destroy confidence in
the parents, and in the second place it suggests that there
is something evil in sex, since concealment is necessary.
Many cases are on record where the denial or distortion
of the truth has led to extraordinary birth phantasies
eventually culminating in hysterical symptoms. Jung re-
ports a most interesting case of a little girl of four years
whose relations with her parents became completely de-
ranged as a result of their concealment of the facts of
reproduction.6 Another case is reported by Pfister of a
girl of sixteen who suffered regularly at the menstrual epoch
from vomiting. "It turned out," he says, "that when she
was small, she had believed that children were born by the
mouth. After she had gained insight in this connection
the symptoms ceased immediately." 7 Freud, in Uber in-
fantile Sexiuiltheorien, repeatedly brings out the impor-
tance of birth and creation theories for the later develop-
ment of the individual. The strange composite of fact and
fiction with regard to birth and creation that falls to the
lot of most children, coupled with their inability to secure
complete and reliable information, forms an incomparable
basis for phantasy building. The child broods upon the
matter searching for the truth, and the occasional light
that flickers through from doubtful sources illuminates
strange phantasies which lurk in the unconscious awaiting
a suitable opportunity to reappear. The association of
masturbation with the development of these birth and crea-
tion theories has not yet been fully elucidated, but there
appears to be evidence of close relationship.

When instruction in sex physiology is postponed until
the tenth or twelfth year, or even until puberty, as some
advise, the child ordinarily knows all that his parents can
tell him, and, what is more, his attitude towards these mat-
ters has already become fixed. After the long suggestive

•Jung. Lecture delivered at Clark University.
TPftster. The Psychoanalytic Method.

The Laws of Sea;

silence he cannot break through the repression that has
developed. He listens, perhaps, submissively and a little
guiltily, being aware of the unsavory sources of his pre-
vious information, but now the roles are changed; it is
he who will not or cannot discuss these matters with his
parents. The opportunity for the formation of a frank
and open relationship with his parents is past, and though
it may still be in part recovered, a subtle embarrassment
destructive of genuine understanding will ordinarily re-
main. Having been forced so long to keep his sex thoughts
silent he finds it impossible to remove the inhibition. Thus
in the tempestuous years of adolescence the guidance and
help of his parents is denied to him.

Some mothers say proudly: "I have tried to talk to
my daughter of these things but she shows no interest; she
asks no questions. She is so innocent that she is not
curious." Alas! doubtless her curiosity had long since
been satisfied. The misapprehension of parents with re-
gard to their children's knowledge of sex matters is well
evidenced in the following incident.

A colored girl of 13 years gave birth to a child that was
a light mulatto. She accused a white boy of sixteen of
excellent family of being the father of her child. On being
approached he confessed to the relationship. His mother
was interviewed in the hope that she would help provide for
her grandchild's future, but she vehemently protested that
her son must be innocent as he was utterly ignorant of
even the primary facts of life. In the midst of the con-
versation the boy came into the room and denounced the
informant for telling the truth, which he admitted to his
mother.

Another phase of sexual life against which most adults
consistently close their minds is homosexuality. People
will not believe how large a part such relationships play in
the lives of adolescents, otherwise they would view with
distrust the system of education that segregates the sexes

Sex as a Factor m Education 381

during the time when the libido seeks most strongly for ex-
pression. If, as Freud maintains, "You can assign to every
child without doing him an injustice a bit of homosexual
endowment," it is clearly most unwise to segregate him
with the members of his own sex during his most impression-
able period if homosexual relationships are to be avoided.
In segregated schools and colleges, in nurses' training
schools, in divinity schools, in fact, in every sort of edu-
cational institution where the sexes are rigidly separated,
cases constantly arise where homosexual love develops often
permanently inhibiting: all interest in the opposite sex.
Havelock Ellis, K. H. Ulrichs, Edward Carpenter and
many other careful students maintain that there is a
definite uranian type that cannot find satisfaction in hetero-
sexual relationships and who suffer grievously from the
ban which society has placed upon them. Carpenter calls
this the intermediate sex and maintains that urnings,
whether they be male or female, are frequently people of
high native endowment whose happiness and comfort should
not be sacrificed to the arbitrary judgments of society.
Havelock Ellis also believes that the rigid attitude of
heterosexuals toward the uranian type is to be deprecated
and urges the relaxation of the code of morals which con-
demns urnings to public censure or even penalization.

Doubtless under existing conditions this attitude of so-
ciety does result, in the individual case, in much irrational
cruelty, for after encouraging through its educational system
the development of homosexuals, society rounds on them
and denies them the right of satisfaction. Edward Car-
penter says: "If the men and women born with the
tendency in question were only exceedingly rare, though
it wouldn't be fair on that account to ignore them, yet it
would hardly be necessary to dwell at great length on their
case. But as the class is on any computation numerous,
it becomes a duty for society not only to understand them
but to help them to understand themselves, for there is

332 The Laws of Sex

no doubt that in many cases people of this kind suffer a
good deal from their own temperament, and yet after all
it is possible that they may have an important part to play
in the evolution of the race. Anyone who realizes what
love is, the dedication of the heart, so profound, so ab-
sorbing, so mysterious, so imperative and always just in
the noblest natures so strong, cannot fail to see how diffi-
cult, how tragic even, must often be the fate of those whose
deepest feelings are destined from earliest days to be a
riddle and a stumbling block, unexplained to themselves and
passed over in silence by others."

The numerical relation of homosexuals to heterosexuals is
variously estimated, some placing it as low as 1.5 per cent
of the adult population, while others hold that it is much
higher.8 Three important investigations carried on by
Hirschfeld in Berlin and Dr. von Romer in Amsterdam,
indicate that 3.9 per cent of the population is bisexual. In
the large cities such as Paris, Berlin and New York, groups
of urnings congregate together, thereby in some measure
ameliorating their condition. Bloch estimates that before
the war there were 1,200,000 homosexuals in the German
Empire.9 The vice investigations that within recent years
have been put through in many cities disclose consistently
the prevalence of uranism. Here again a characteristic
vocabulary exists which is sometimes suggestively utilized
on the stage, especially by actors who impersonate the
opposite sex. One of the reasons why the constant playing
of feminine roles by lads in colleges dramatics is frowned
upon by the authorities is because it has been found to
further homosexual tendencies.

The potent sufferings of urnings and the frequently high
character of their emotions, for they often idealize love
far more loftily than do heterosexuals, might well lead fair-

8 Magnus Hirschfeld. Result of the Statistical Investigation* regarding
the percentage of Homosexuals.
•Bloch. Sexual Life of Our Time.

Sex as a Faetor in Education 388

minded persons to favor a relaxation of the moral code
were it not that homosexual love through its denial of re-
production is a menace not only to the racial life but to the
complete development of the sex life of the individual.
Many persons who temporarily believe themselves to be
homosexual, and who participate in such relations later
under different conditions, return to normal heterosexuality,
marry and have children. These individuals enjoy a much
richer sex life than they would if society had encouraged
uranism by tacit compliance. While there is no doubt but
that fixation results in a fair proportion of the cases and
that urnings of 30 or 35 years could never return to so-
called normal sexuality, the happiness of these individuals
may well be sacrificed to the greater happiness involved in
the lives of the younger, more plastic individuals who would
be more easily seduced to homosexuality were society more
lenient.

An illustrative case is that of a nurse of unusual intelli-
gence and personal charm who had been educated in the
segregated system. She was tall, finely built and good-
looking. Her mother whom she had adored had died when
she was about five years old. At fourteen she was seduced
by a woman teacher at boarding school and for three years
lived in this emotion. Then the teacher transferred her
affection to another girl leaving her former sweetheart
desolate. Upon returning home the girl was expected to
undertake the usual social life, but she experienced a great
sexual repugnance to men and although she had several
proposals of marriage from friends whom she liked in a
Platonic manner she could not bring herself to accept and
finally resolved to study nursing. Again among members
of her own sex her earlier longings returned and she formed
an alliance with another nurse in training, also of unusual
intellectual and physical attractions. This relationship
lasted about six years and was characterized by rather
more constancy than usually exists in marriage. At the

384 The Laws of Sex

end of this time she suddenly fell in love with another girl
who had no previous knowledge of homosexuality, with whom
she had secret relations. Her former friend becoming suspi-
cious, she broke off the relationship only to become in-
fatuated a few months later with a third girl, a debutante
who also had been previously ignorant. While this re-
lationship was in progress she became enamored of a young
woman of unattractive appearance who also believed herself
to be an urning and who had already had several homo-
sexual experiences. This affair was discovered, leading to
the betrayal of all the others, and the original companion
threatened disclosure and prosecution.

The mental suffering of the deserted woman was quite
as great as that of the wife whose husband has left her
for another affinity.

Of the two young girls whom the nurse had seduced one
became a misanthrope and the other, the debutante, after
a brief period of emotional storm and man-hating, had illicit
relations with a man whom she subsequently married and
with whom she is exceedingly happy.

Another case was that of two girls in college, one of
whom suffered definitely from hysteria. Their devotion
was obvious and they made no especial effort at conceal-
ment. After graduation the relationship tempestuously
broke up and one of the girls entered a convent where she
fell in love with a nun and eventually committed suicide.
The other married and became the mother of several
children.

The difficulty in openly sanctioning uranism is that such
compliance inevitably would lead to an increase in the prac-
tice, for homosexuals are deterred, at least in part, by the
present code from seducing younger persons.

Since homosexuality continually seeks new objects of
affection and since many of these may be by no means
fixed types and suffer exceedingly as a result of their seduc-
tion, the evils inherent in, the practice are obvious. Mar-

Sex as a Factor in Education 335

riage and reproduction undoubtedly offer a better medium
for the complete and constructive utilization of the sex im-
pulses than does uranism. Barren sex relationships de-
pendent purely upon passion are no more enduring among
homosexuals than among heterosexuals, and are to be depre-
cated for precisely the same reasons. The libertine who
flies from flower to flower blighting the blossoms is no more
to be respected as an urning than as an heterosexual
seducer. Passion ending in disillusion inevitably entails
traumata which affect the egoist far less fatally than they
do the more idealistic companion.

Although it cannot perhaps be denied that such experi-
ences may bring stimulus to artistic effort and some spiritual
enlightenment, the price paid is too high and the dangers
too imminent to make it worth while.

As the idealistic element declines after the enjoyment of
many homosexual devotions the genuine pervert emerges.
A minister who was married, but who had previously had
homosexual experiences, was found at about forty years
of age to be seducing many boys of tender age. He ex-
cused himself on the ground that he was a natural urning.
A schoolmaster of similar history explained that he could
not, when among young boys, withstand the temptation.
When his practices were discovered he immediately resigned
and left the state, but later secured another position still
in the teaching world in a distant city.

It is obvious that such perverts could demoralize large
numbers of young children who in turn might become sources
of contamination, and that for this reason they should be,
in so far as possible, restrained from their practices.

Probably the best preventive of homosexuality lies in
coeducation from earliest years onward. The child who
associates with contemporaries of the opposite sex in school
and at play ordinarily passes through two stages of de-
velopment: first, a period of sex antagonism when the boys
and girls tend for their several reasons to deprecate one

336 The Laws of Sex

another, and second, a period of heightened admiration
more or less coincident with adolescence. When the sexes
are separated, save in the family circle, from childhood
forward, the period of sex antagonism is lengthened, and
exaggerated and erroneous ideas of the opposite sex develop.
The opportunity for the awakening of normal heterosexual
desires is not offered, and embarrassment and misunder-
standing of the opposite sex ensues. This leads to estrange-
ment between the sexes in some cases and in others to an
abnormal interest in the opposite sex based purely upon
physical attraction, which again is dangerous.

In case of estrangement the awakening sexual desire
frequently becomes homosexual as evidenced in the multi-
farious "crushes" in girls' schools, or the profound adora-
tion of boys sometimes for one another or again for a
master. In the great majority of these cases no physical
association, in the sense of uranism, is involved, but the
emotion is so deep and so abiding both in the physical
and spiritual impact, that it leaves a distinct trauma.
Many wives who are unresponsive to their husbands, even
though they love them, are the victims of this earlier ideal-
istic homosexuality, and many persons who never marry
are driven to celibacy and masturbation from the same
cause. It would be of great pedagogic interest to ascer-
tain the percentage of homosexuals among those who have
been educated in segregated schools and those who have
grown up under coeducation, for the information which
has come to light through individual histories and vice
investigations indicates that this factor is of extraordinary
moment.

According to Freud the sexual behavior is the prototype
of general conduct. The inverted individual is timid, lack-
ing in initiative and self-reliance, the homosexual woman
is often extremely masculine in her approach toward life
and the homosexual man the reverse. The man with an
CEdipus complex retreats from conflict, desiring again to

Sex as a Factor in Education 337

hide himself in the gracious comfort of mother love. He
fears competition, longs for ease, and retires even from
opportunity if the road looks difficult. Or again, he may
seek place and preferment even though it avails nothing
for his happiness in order to outdo the hated father-image
and justify himself in his own eyes. Fixation upon parent,
brother or sister may be of decisive moment in the selection
of husband or wife and bear little relation to reality.

Freud has brought out, as has no one else, and his ob-
servations have been amply confirmed, the absolute impor-
tance of the infantile in all after life.

"The unconscious is the infantile," says Freud, "and
that particular part of a person which has been separated
from the personality at that time and hence has been re-
pressed." 10

The first five years of childhood, the very memory of
which may slip from the mind, are of determining impor-
tance in the development of the individual.

Not only does Freud consider every neurosis to be directly
traceable to infantile repressions, but the formation of
character and the ordinary performances of every-day life
are ascribed by him to impressions received during this
early period.

The sublimation of the libido to art, science, religion,
or altruism is achieved, according to Freud, in consonance
with the formation of these infantile roots. Dreams have
their source in infantile repressions and can only be properly
interpreted in this light.

Pfister sums up Freud's pedagogic philosophy well when
he says : "As the tree has to suffer for a lifetime from
injuries done to it when just pushing its shoot above the
ground, so also the human mind." 1J

The prejudices that are acquired in early childhood are

10 Freud. Bem-erkungen tiber einen Fall von Zwangsnewrase, Jahrb. I,
373.
"Pfister. Psychoanalytic Method.

338 The Laws of Sex

so profound as sometimes to counterfeit instinct, and habits
of body or mind may become so fixed during this period as
to simulate hereditary endowment.

The Roman Catholic saying, "Give the church a child
until he is seven years old and she will have him all his
life," is worthy of the consideration of every parent.

During these first few years the life of the individual
is preformed in an extraordinarily comprehensive sense and
yet most parents pass them by with little thought of the
precious moments that are day by day slipping into the
invisible. Physical health, the acquiring of a few cleanly
habits, the imposition of a dogmatic menu, and obedience,
which Mrs. Oilman defines as "the subordination of the
intellect and the abrogation of the will," constitute the
usual parental goals. Of the sex life of the child there is
but little comprehension. Falsehood, sham-modesty and
repression is commonly his lot.

Is it any wonder that one out of every nine marriages
ends in the divorce court and that venereal disease is the
greatest menace to military efficiency that exists?

CHAPTER XIV

SOME CASE HISTORIES

In order to visualize the human element that is involved
in the problem of the social evil, the following case histories,
taken more or less at random, are presented for the reader's
consideration. These cases could be multiplied a thousand-
fold and then only inadequately portray the daily toll that
mankind is paying for the disordered sexual life of the race.

Case I. Arthur , A man of 36 years, president

of a large scale manufacturing establishment, married, and
with one daughter 7 years old, suddenly began to place
large orders for pianos, motor cars, etc. He developed
an extraordinary interest in long walks and violent ex-
ercise, and showed recurrent unreliability in business af-
fairs. His relations toward his friends and his family
underwent serious alterations. After about three months
of upsetting symptoms delusions of grandeur began to
appear, and he was examined by a physician. A diagnosis
of general paresis was made and the patient was sent to a
hospital for the insane, where two years later he died in
a most pitiful condition. His mind had become completely
deranged. He could no longer retain urine or faeces, and
his disposition shifted between moods of great elation and
crushing despondency. A history of syphilis contracted
at 19 years of age was obtained.

Case II. Alice , 24 years of age, of gentle birth

and high personal character, married a Captain in the
U. S. Army. Ten months later she gave birth to a pre-
339

340 The Lcavt of Sex

mature child. The placenta indicated syphilitic infection,
which was confirmed by a Wasserman. She was placed
under anti-syphilitic treatment. Fourteen months after-
ward she gave birth to a viable child which within a week
showed signs of congenital syphilis. Snuffles developed,
a rash appeared, and about a month later the child died.
The autopsy showed involvement of the liver, kidneys and
spleen. Treatment of the mother was continued, and she
later gave birth to a third child, which showed marked signs
of idiocy at its second year.

Case III. Annie , a mulatto girl, 19 years old,

had been placed in a child-caring institution when she was
a baby. At 14 years she went out into domestic service.
She was a very religious girl, and at church met a colored
man about 15 years her senior, whom she subsequently
married. Her husband was later convicted of larceny, and
was imprisoned for two years in the penitentiary. Annie
again entered domestic service. Soon she began to feel
pains in her joints and general malaise, and her mistress,
who was the wife of a dentist, took her to a physician, who
was an acquaintance, for an examination. A diagnosis of

syphilis was returned and Mrs. was warned that

it would be dangerous to keep Annie as a domestic. The
girl was dismissed and was directed to report regularly
at a public health clinic for treatment. She followed the
doctor's orders, but having no place to stay and no money,
she at first walked the streets and finally succumbed to
the solicitation of several male patrons. Her symptoms
caused her such distress that one night she slipped into
an entry and lay down to sleep, where she was arrested as
a vagrant. The court sentenced her to three months in a
penal institution, providing no adequate facilities for treat-
ment, although the hearing of the case brought out the fact
that the girl was infected and infectious. She is now serving
her sentence and the Board of Health has been apprised of

Some Case Histories 341

the case, but there is no agency to help Annie when she
comes out, either to secure employment or hospital treat-
ment. The names and addresses of three men who had had
intercourse with her were secured, but they were merely
ordered to report for examination and treatment. There
was no thought of sending them to jail.

Case IV. Arabella , white, motherless, 16 years

old, was seduced under promise of marriage by a man
who was a friend of her father, and was taken to Phila-
delphia. She became pregnant and was promptly deserted.
The woman in whose home she was staying could not keep
her without board, and Arabella sought admission into a
hospital. She was told that her pregnancy was not suffi-
ciently far advanced, but that she could return later. She
sought work in a candy factory, but upon her condition
becoming known she was dismissed. She wrote to her father,
but received no reply. Worn out by hunger and worry
she aborted and was taken in an ambulance to the hospital.
Ten days later she was dismissed and went back to the
woman with whom she had been staying. She was told
that she could not remain unless she could pay her board
money. A lodger in the house, who was a taxi-cab driver,
took pity on her and promised to meet her bills, and she
accepted the man's proposal. Within a day it developed
that he regarded her as his mistress. Sick and disheartened
she complied. The man then informed her that she was
to earn money for them both in his taxi-cab business. Two
months later she was arrested as a common prostitute and
was sentenced to two months in a penal institution.

Case V. Gushing , a girl 18 years old, of re-
fined breeding, one of the season's debutantes in a large
Eastern city, became engaged to one of the social luminaries,
a lawyer some ten years her senior. She developed diffi-
culty in vision and was taken by her mother to Dr. ,

342 The Lawg of Sex

a leading ophthalmologist. The picture presented was a
syphilitic iritis and the diagnosis was confirmed by a positive
Wasserman. The physician consulted the girl's fiance and
persuaded him to submit to an examination. Mucous
patches in his mouth revealed the sources of the girl's infec-
tion. The disease had been transmitted by a kiss. The
patient's vision will be permanently impaired.

Case VI. Robert , 19 years old, a student at a

leading Eastern University, suddenly became blind. It
was as if a curtain had dropped before his eyes ; within two
hours he was totally unable to see. No history of exposure
to venereal disease could be secured, but upon looking up
his family history it was found that his father was afflicted
with locomotor-ataxia. A positive Wasserman revealed
the presence of active syphilis in the boy, presumably of
congenital origin. His sight is completely gone.

Case VII. Carrington , 48 years old, white, mar-
ried, the incumbent of a high political post, began to notice
difficulty in walking. At first he laughed about it and
told his friends to excuse him, he did not know where his feet
were going. On examination on-coming locomotor-ataxia
was diagnosed. One year later the characteristic flail-
walk had developed. He had to use a cane and keep his
eyes on the ground in order to maintain his equilibrium.
Four years later locomotion was impossible and he had to
be wheeled about in a chair. A history of syphilitic in-
fection twenty years previously was secured.

Case VIII. Col. Brooks , a Virginian gentleman

of 56 years, living on a large estate, had been a paralytic
for four years. Of his five children one was an epileptic, one
an imbecile and the other three normal. His property had
gone very much to pieces. He began to develop excru-
ciating pains, lightning pains, in the abdomen, for which

Some Cage Historiet 343

his old doctor prescribed morphia. The old physician died
and a young man who had come into the neighborhood cut
down the doses of morphia, and impressed upon the normal
daughter, who was taking care of her father, the danger of
the drug habit. The patient suffered unbelievably, but the
daughter followed the doctor's directions. Finally the old
man with the help of his imbecile son secured a quantity of
the opiate which ameliorated his suffering.

In his early days the patient had contracted syphilis.

Case IX. Anton , 18 years old, a brilliant violinist,

had completed his first series of public concerts and was
hailed as a coming virtuoso. Suddenly swelling appeared
in his left elbow accompanied by severe pain. A typical
picture of gonorrhoeal arthritis was presented and the diag-
nosis was confirmed by the presence of a chronic gonococcus
infection of the urethra. After prolonged treatment the
symptoms subsided but the joint remained stiff, utterly in-
capacitating him for his chosen profession. Overwhelmed
with the catastrophe, he committed suicide.

Case X. Pearl , a prostitute, 20 years old, white,

had been brought before a certain magistrate repeatedly.
She was at first fined and later was committed to the House
of Correction. At her last trial she promised the Judge
that she would not come before him again. Some months
later, as the Judge was going into the station house, the
police wagon drove up and the driver called to him the name
of the former prostitute.

"What — Pearl again?" asked the magistrate.

"Yes and no, your honor," said the driver. "She's dead,
we just got her out of the water."

Case XI. Walter , a medical student, 21 years old,

contracted a case of gonorrhoea. He was engaged to be
married. His teacher, who was at the same time his physi-

344 The Laws of Sex

cian, warned him of the danger. After two months' treat-
ment he eloped with the girl and was secretly married.
She soon developed what she was told was "appendicitis"
and was operated upon, becoming thereby completely steri-
lized. She was heart-broken when she learned that she could
never have any children.

Case XII. Amelia , 20 years old, of gentle family,

married a wealthy young man some three years her senior.
About four months later she had a miscarriage, attended by
severe constitutional symptoms and high fever. She failed
to make a complete recovery and curettage was advised.
Upon dismissal from the hospital she improved somewhat,
but complained of pelvic pain and dysmenorrhoea. She
was also extremely nervous and hysterical. Her symptoms
increased and upon examination pelvic abscesses were dis-
covered. Operation was delayed and one of the abscesses
ruptured, causing acute peritonitis. The patient was hur-
ried to the hospital but in vain; she died on the operating
table.

Her husband had had gonorrhoea five years before his
marriage, but had erroneously supposed himself completely
cured.

Case XIII. Winifred , a pupil nurse, 24 years old,

in one of the most renowned hospitals in the East, had
recently been assigned to the obstetrical ward. Twelve
patients, who had been delivered, were under her care. She
bathed them, made their beds, attended to their personal
needs, etc. When she had been on the ward about two
weeks she noticed, late one afternoon, a sensation of smart-
ing in her right eye. At first she thought nothing of it, but
the pain increased so rapidly that before she went off duty
she reported it to the head nurse. The doctor on the ward
was immediately summoned, and after looking at her eye the
first question that he asked was whether Mrs. X was one of

Some Case Histories 345

her cases. Upon her affirmative reply he seemed deeply
concerned and called in a prominent opthalmologist asso-
ciated with the hospital.

It then appeared that Mrs. X had gonorrhoea, that the
nurse had in no way been warned of the danger, and the
diagnosis of gonorrhoeal opthalmia was promptly confirmed
by the microscopic findings. A strenuous course of treat-
ment was at once commenced, but in vain. Not only was
vision in the right eye destroyed but a cruelly disfiguring
scar resulted.

Cdbe XIV. Mrs. R. S., 26 years old, had been married
three years and had one little daughter two years old. At
the commencement of the war her husband enlisted and
served with the A.E.F. overseas. Being taught by the
government to believe in the efficacy of prophylaxis he
indulged in illicit sex relations and, despite the prompt ad-
ministration of prophylaxis, contracted syphilis. He was
placed under systematic treatment and after the war re-
turned home presumably cured. About ten months later
Mrs. R. S. was delivered of a premature child which was
obviously syphilitic. The husband was examined, showed a
negative Wasserman, but on lumbar puncture the presence
of active syphilis was established. Meanwhile the little
daughter, who had been constantly with the mother during
her illness, had acquired the infection. The whole family is
now under treatment.

Case XV. Alfred , principal of a girls' high school,

married a young woman, twelve years his junior, who was
a member of a prominent local family. Soon after marriage
his wife developed an intense dislike for him, based on no
material ground, but so profound that she shortly exhibited
signs of mental derangement. Her family took her to a
well-known psychiatrist who, after careful analysis, stated
plainly the cause of the disturbance. The family, believing

346 The Laws of Sex

erroneously that the husband must have abused the girl,
persuaded her to leave the man and come home with them.

Alfred , having no sense of guilt and loving his wife

truly, fell in with the plan, hoping that absence would bring
the girl to give over her dislike for him. At the commence-
ment of the following school year he was not reappointed to
his position, it being held by the school board that it was
unsuitable for a man whose wife had left him to serve as the
principal of a girls' high school.

Case XVI. Professor W. of the Unversity, 42 years

old, a man who had already distinguished himself and who
gave great promise for the future, had married at 22 years
of age a woman with whom he was temperamentally uncon-
genial. She was trivial, had no intellectual interests and
merely desired to shine in society. They had no children.
Within three years they discovered their mutual error and
broke off relations as husband and wife but continued to
live under the same roof for the sake of appearances.

When he was 39 years old Professor W. fell deeply in
love with a young woman, Miss R., who reciprocated his
affection. After a considerable interval Professor W. ex-
plained the situation to his wife and offered her a large
share of his private fortune if she would grant him his
freedom. She complied to the extent of letting him live as
he pleased but obstinately refused to get a divorce. A secret
liaison between Professor W. and Miss R. developed, but
little by little news of the affair leaked out until it reached
the ears of the Trustees of the University. Gossip also
brought the matter back to Mrs. W. who, feeling that her
dignity was at stake, repudiated the agreement and took
the case to some of the Trustees whom she knew. The
outcome was an ultimatum to Professor W. to the effect
that he must either relinquish Miss R. or resign his position
in the University.

It was a terrible choice, as Professor W, loved Miss R.

Some Case Histories 347

deeply but was also profoundly devoted to his work. Finally
he sent in his resignation to the University and then a storm
broke in the local newspapers. Intimate correspondence
and innumerable personal details were published, accom-
panied by photographs, and the Trustees immediately
accepted the resignation. Mrs. W. also entered suit for
divorce. Professor W. and Miss R. were driven out of town
by public opinion and as soon as the divorce was granted
were married as they had always wished to be.

Professor W. is now seeking a position which will enable
him to continue his scientific work but despite his recognized
ability no University dares to grant him an appointment.
The net result of the procedure seems to be merely the
destruction of Professor W.'s career and the loss of an
exceptionally able man to science.

Case XVII. Andrew , 40 years old, married, with

three half-grown daughters, fell in love with his bookkeeper.
For years he and his wife had been on bad terms and he had
begged her to get a divorce from him. She refused, as
she disliked him too much to grant him his freedom. In
desperation he began a campaign of terrorization — rushed
at her at night with a carving knife, broke the furniture,
and created scandalous scenes which horrified the children.
But his wife was adamant — such a man, he was too bad
to be given his freedom.

The shop where he made propellers for aeroplanes was
attached to his home. The front parlor was his office. It
was impossible for him to leave his means to a livelihood.

Finally the bookkeeper, who was a woman of courage

and loved him deeply, settled the matter. Andrew

and she moved into rooms at a distance and lived together.
Then they came daily to their work to the scandal of the
neighbors. Upon this the wife sued for divorce on statutory
grounds, which was soon granted and she and the children
moved to another city.

348 The Laws of Sex

Case XV11I. Frank , 38 years old, married, with six

children. He was devoted to his family and made $20 a
week as janitor in a medical school. When the second
child was a year old the patient had typhoid fever. Soon
after the fourth child was born he broke his arm. Frank
was then working on the street railway as a conductor.

He complained of "fits," would fall on the floor in con-
vulsions and go completely blind. He frothed at the mouth,
became rigid, and would roll his eyes about in a terrible
manner. Sometimes he was blind for two days. These
attacks recurred at intervals of from six to eight weeks.

He was taken to a psychiatrist and the analysis brought
out the fact that he loved his wife, could not deny himself
sexual intercourse, and dreaded the thought of having more
children. An effort was made to have him sterilized by
vasectomy and he begged the surgeon to perform the opera-
tion, but the hospital authorities would not comply. The
physician instructed him in contraceptive methods and since
then he has had no more attacks. There are now eight chil-
dren, all of them weak, complaining, and inadequately edu-
cated. Those over 14 years of age are working.

Case XIX. Stuart , 27 years old, a lawyer,

married the daughter of one of the senior members of his
law firm. About two years later she gave birth to a son and
within a few hours the infant's eyes showed signs of infec-
tion. The nurse called the physician and he immediately
put the child under treatment. Microscopic examination
showed that the infection was of gonorrhoeal origin. In
spite of all efforts the child's eyesight was completely de-
stroyed.

The mother developed puerperal fever and ten days later
died.

A history of gonorrhoeal infection in the husband six
years before marriage was secured.

CHAPTER XV

CONCLUSIONS

From the preceding survey it has been seen (1) that the
social evil, comprising prostitution and venereal disease, is
a result of the disordered sexual life of the race; (2) that
marriage is the expression of a definite racial need, and
developed through natural selection as an institution for
the preservation of the offspring, and as the vehicle for
sexual selection; (3) that sex among human beings is dual
in nature, presenting both a racial and a personal aspect;
(4) that prostitution rests upon economic injustice and
unnatural laws which act to make monogamy a meaningless
and impracticable institution; (5) that the present edu-
cational and social systems provide no secure background
for congenial marriages and tend to encourage homosexual-
ity and other perversions of the sexual impulse; (6) that
the present programs for the repression of prostitution
and the control of venereal disease are irrational and worth-
less, and could never, even if put fully into effect, accomplish
their objectives.

The solution of the problem of the Social Evil rests
primarily upon a reorganization of the sexual life of the
race in accordance with the natural laws of sex. Before this
can be fully accomplished the economic system must be re-
adjusted so that both men and women will be freed from
the coercive bondage of poverty. Political liberty is but
a phrase as long as the majority of the people languish
in economic serfdom. The spiritual and temporal emanci-
pation of women must be completed, to the end that they
may exercise freedom in the selection of their mates and

349

350 The Laws of Sex

ascend from the degradation of marketing their sex as a
means to a livelihood either within or outside wedlock.

The first and simplest approach to the problem lies
through the education of children. They should be taught,
with sympathetic veracity, the simple truths of sex physi-
ology, and in addition should be placed in an environment
conducive to the sublimation of the sexual impulses to al-
truism and intellectual accomplishment. Music, gymnastics,
manual training and natural science should replace the
stupefying monotony of the ordinary curriculum. A
sedentary life is abnormal for young children, yet most
of the present curricula demand long hours of listless effort,
with no opportunity for physical development or character
formation.

Above all, coeducation should be instituted from the
kindergarten through the college and the professional
school. Since nature ordains that men and women shall
live together, the segregation of the sexes during their
adolescent years is a defiance of nature's premise which in-
*vitably entails perversion and over-stimulation. Successful
marriage is more than an erotic relationship, and requires
a substructure in wide and familiar knowledge of the op-
posite sex. The dangers of coeducation, if they exist, are
far less grave than those that are involved in the segregated
system.

The greatest and final school which all people attend
day by day is that of social life ; no matter how well trained
the youth may be in the home or in the educational in-
stitution, he will eventually receive most of his ideals and
opinions from the community in which he lives. Public
opinion, the subtle moulder of private conscience, is ever
at work from childhood until death shaping the ideals and
prejudices of the individual. To an amazing extent the
individual conscience is but the reflection of the standards
of conduct established by the social organism.

It is in this respect that the law and its enforcement is

Conclusions 351

of the greatest moment in fixing sexual ideals, for upon
the practical administration of justice in any age depends
the ethical standards of rising generations.

Prophylaxis, regulation, segregation, or any other tolera-
tive measures which look to the sanitation of vice, are nec-
essarily destructive of their own objectives, for they tacitly
encourage promiscuous sex relationships which are the
source of syphilis and gonorrhoea. Adopting this public
standard, rising generations perpetuate the evil which is at
the root of venereal disease, and the solution of the prob-
lem is merely postponed.

It is a patent fact that the repression of prostitution,
and therewith the abatement of venereal disease, eventually
depends upon the education of the individual to a proper
control and direction of his sexual life. But the public
standards established for sex relationships will precede
rather than follow masculine idealism in this field. Already
a sufficient basis exists in public opinion among the mass
of women and among a fraction of men for the establish-
ment of reasonable standards of sexual conduct for the
race.

The emancipation of women has released for practical
use a point of view on sexual matters which holds monog-
amous union to be the natural vehicle for the expression
of the sexual impulse among human beings. Out of a
long experience women have learned that light passion and
irresponsible amours bring ruin and desolation in their
wake, and that personal license is as destructive of happi-
ness and liberty in the realm of sex as it is in every other
sphere of conduct. The demand among women for a strict
observance of the marriage code is based, not upon hypo-
thetical morals, but upon knowledge, deep-rooted, of the
importance of fixing definite boundaries for sexual liberty.
As a burnt child dreads the fire so women of mature years
natively shun illicit relationships for the experience of their
sex, for centuries long, has taught them the difficulties and

352 The Laws of Sex

dangers attendant upon such conduct. They believe in
chastity and marriage because they have learned that in-
continence and secret liaisons usually result in their own
and their children's destruction. This knowledge is for the
time being phrased merely as unreasoning prejudice, and
needs elucidation and direction before it can be turned to
constructive use. It is, however, a potential power, which
with enlightenment may be relied upon to bring about a
reorganization of the sexual life of the race within a com-
paratively short space of time.

The prejudice among women against sexual promiscuity
is so profound, and its counterpart among men is so rarely
encountered, that it has been misinterpreted as marking
a differentiation between the sexes in their native inclina-
tions. Women are admittedly monogamous in their sexual
disposition, but men, it is maintained, are by nature of
polygamous habit. The anachronisms in this hypothesis
have been pointed out in a previous chapter, and the source
of the apparent difference has been traced to the social
and educational systems which for centuries have upheld
a double standard of sexual morals.

The trend of the times is, beyond doubt, in the direction
of a new standard of sexual conduct which will apply
equally to both men and women. This is evidenced in the
growing opinion that love is the right basis for human sex
relationships and in the increasing demand that the mar-
riage and divorce code must be changed to accord with this
primary concept. The relaxation of the prejudice against
birth control, apparent in every stratum of society, is fur-
ther evidence of the modern viewpoint on marriage. People
would seem almost to have learned that the expression of
honorable love through the natural physical channels is
essential to a wholesome marital relationship and that
continuous reproduction is not needed to justify monogamy.
The fact that "man makes love at all times," and not

Conclusions 353

merely during a temporary period of rut as among the
animals, is the basis both for a permanent monogamous
•union and for the control of the power of reproduction.

The first step toward the elimination of the social evil is
the education of the general public with regard to the
nature and prevalence of venereal disease. It is of primary
importance that the practical aspects of the problem in
terms of public health and personal safety should be made
clear in order to insure adequate motives for action. A
father may not object if his future son-in-law has lost
his chastity, but he will view the matter very differently
if he knows the close association between immorality and
venereal disease. An uninformed girl may admire fast men
and enjoy their company, but a girl who knows that loose
living predicates syphilis and gonorrhoea will tend to
discourage the attentions of men who have presumably
been exposed to these infections. Women who feel that
masculine morals are no especial concern of theirs will adopt
a different attitude when they learn that from this source
marital contamination and racial degeneration proceed.
Morals to be of vital concern to the masses must have a
sound basis in expediency, and since this is the case in
regard to marriage it is essential to bring the facts home.

Coincidently with the educational campaign, a rational
program looking toward the repression of prostitution and
the control of venereal disease should be advanced, for
experience has proven that it is dangerous to incite people
to action without providing a sound program for them
to follow. The unspeakable abuses from which women now
suffer as a result of misdirected efforts toward the re-
pression of prostitution, and the cruelty that is meted out
to men who desire to direct their sex lives in accordance
with the law of love, indicates how justice may miscarry
when untutored persons enter upon a crusade against vice.
The Comstockian policy of prudery and violence makes

354- The Laws of Sex

virtue itself appear hideous, and drives reasonable and
kindly people into revolt against any standardization of
sexual conduct.

Before people can be expected to direct their sex lives
in accordance with accepted principles of justice, real
boundaries based upon natural laws must be substituted
for the artificial sex barriers that have heretofore obtained.
The way must be cleared for virtue before it will be justi-
fiable to punish those who transgress the law. To this end
the reform of the marriage and divorce code is fundamental.

The sacramental nature of marriage, binding the indi-
viduals to lifelong unions in defiance of true love, is already
recognized as an artificial concept which has no counter-
part in life. Marriage is not a sacrament, it is a union
into which two individuals freely enter on a basis of mutual
agreement, and which they should therefore be permitted
to dissolve at will, provided that in the process the rights
of other persons who may be concerned are adequately safe-
guarded. There is no good reason why any two individuals,
male or female, should be forced by the community to live
intimately together if they do not desire to do so, and there
is also no proper ground for refusing these persons the
right to enter into other relationships with other persons
if no one is injured thereby. The present code that denies
the right of divorce to persons who are wholly uncongenial
and which refuses them permission to marry others with
whom they are deeply in love, is a relic of barbarism and
an encouragement to adultery. It breeds unhappiness,
psychoses, immorality and venereal disease, and demoral-
izes and warps the lives of the children whose welfare is
supposed to constitute justification for the parental sacri-
fice. All psychiatrists are agreed that the worst possible
environment for any child is a home in which discord and
hatred reign, and yet this is the daily atmosphere which
these helpless members of society are doomed to when their
parents are chained together by the law.

Conclusions 355

If marriage were regarded merely as a contract, which
it palpably is, and if the financial responsibilities of the
husband and wife in their mutual relation, and also in re-
spect to possible offspring, were fixed by law, the human sex
relation could be standardized according to accepted ethical
principles. Justice and virtue could at last find their way
into this sphere.

The mass of outgrown prejudice that now encumbers the
marriage code finds credence in the minds of none but bigots
and pornographic fanatics. The average man and woman
of good conscience and intelligence recognize that love
should be the final arbiter in the marriage relation, and
they resent the publicity given to divorce suits, and desire
the abolition of the necessity for such inhuman proceedings.
Incompatibility alone is sufficient basis for divorce, and
when this fact is recognized in the law the way will be
open for the introduction of morals into the realm of sex.

On a basis of marriage, with stated parental and finan-
cial responsibilities and divorce on grounds of incompati-
bility alone, a law against fornication could be justly en-
forced. There would no longer be any valid or natural
reason for extra-marital relations, for the way would be
clear for the expression of genuine sexual love within the
limits of matrimony.

Monogamous marriage under these conditions reinforced
by birth control would constitute a feasible relation between
the sexes wholly in accord with the natural laws of sex,
and conducive to the best interests of husband, wife, and
children, and the race at large. Sexual selection, upon
which the improvement of the race stock depends, would
have free play, and yet the interests of the individuals con-
cerned would be safeguarded.

With the reform of marriage and divorce, a campaign for
the repression of extra-marital relationships, and the con-
trol of venereal disease, could be entered upon without fear
of violating the just rights of any individual.

356 The Laws of Sex

The first step in this direction is the abandonment of
the hope of the sanitation of vice. As long as medical men
direct their efforts toward making vice safe for men, either
through the examination of persons arrested for or con-
victed of prostitution, or through medical prophylaxis, the
arm of the law will be paralyzed in all efforts to repress
prostitution or to institute adequate quarantine against
venereal disease.

Neither prophylaxis nor the police court examination of
public women can be relied upon to render promiscuous
sexual relations safe so far as venereal disease is con-
cerned, yet while these measures are in effect the public
is led to believe that the public health is adequately safe-
guarded. Prophylaxis involves the open recognition of
masculine vice by the state, and places the government in
the position of pandering to male depravity. The police
court examination of prostitutes likewise predicates the
state's connivance at masculine incontinence, for the men
who are arrested in connection with these cases are neces-
sarily held merely as the state's witnesses, as otherwise it
would be impossible to secure sufficient testimony against
the women.

All measures for the secret self-treatment of venereal
disease, including prophylaxis and patent medicines, should
be placed under the ban of the law, and use of the United
States mails for advertising these remedies should be denied.
Quack doctors and advertising specialists who are not quali-
fied to treat venereal disease should be outlawed, and good
facilities for the free treatment of venereal disease should
be organized under the public health service.

The venereal diseases should be placed on the same basis
as all the other dangerous communicable diseases, and re-
ports of all cases by name and address should be required
by law. All cases of venereal diseases registered should be
quarantined under strict regulations and supervision, but
ambulatory treatment should be impartially permitted to

Conclusions 857

both men and women of whatsoever social status. Hos-
pitalization should be reserved for cases really needing
such care, and detention should be resorted to only where
the patients were detected infringing the rules of quaran-
tine. In addition, licenses to marry should be refused to
persons recorded in the archives of the Board of Health
as being quarantined for venereal disease, and laws pro-
viding heavy penalization should be passed making it a
felony for a person quarantined for venereal disease to
have sexual intercourse either within or outside wedlock.
All quarantine measures should apply equally to the two
sexes and operate without regard to social station or legal
discriminations of any kind.

It is quite as absurd to have one kind of quarantine for
men and another for women in connection with venereal dis-
ease as it would be in the case of scarlet fever, and it is
obviously unjust to discriminate against any individual
so far as examination and quarantine are concerned merely
because she is suspected by the police of having infringed
the law. The quarantine regulations for scarlet fever,
diphtheria, smallpox, or any other communicable disease,
operate without regard to the legal status of the individual,
for having an infectious disease is not recognized under the
law as being a crime. The present tendency to revert to
the police court examination of prostitutes is dangerous
and unsound, first, because it fosters a false sense of se-
curity among the general public so far as the danger of
promiscuous intercourse is concerned; second, because it
provides an excuse to the public health officials for their
failure to institute adequate defenses against venereal dis-
ease; and third, because it deprives of their constitutional
rights all women who are suspected by the police of being
immoral, and gives a greater measure of power into the
hands of the police than can safely or legally be placed
there.

The campaign against venereal disease must be placed

858 The Laws of Sex

on a basis of the control of communicable disease without
undue regard for the protection of the reputation of im-
moral men before progress can be anticipated in this field.
As long as the medical profession prefers saving the good
name of venereal men to saving innocent women and chil-
dren from contamination, preventive medicine will be im-
potent to control venereal infection. Hygiene is no re-
spector of the conventions, and medical men must strip
themselves free from financial self-interest and hypocritical
altruism if they honestly desire to minimize syphilis and
gonorrhoea. Continence is clearly an essential hygienic
measure for the control of venereal disease, so medical
men need feel no chagrin at advocating the passage and
enforcement of a fornication law merely because it happens
to be confused in the lay mind with moral measures. In-
continence predicates contact with venereal disease carriers
and from the point of view of preventive medicine should
be strictly so regarded. Since it is essential in all danger-
ous infectious maladies to prevent contacts between infected
and uninfected persons, it follows that, in their attempt to
control venereal disease, the point of first importance for
medical men, is t6 use their utmost efforts to prevent promis-
cuous sexual relations. No genuine progress is possible
as long as men are freely permitted to expose themselves
to persons who are known to be at least 95 per cent in-
fectious.

Briefly summarized, the essential steps toward the con-
trol of venereal disease and the repression of prostitution
are as follows:

A A Measures designed to facilitate the right use of the
sex function in accordance with natural laws.

1. A widespread campaign of education with regard
to the danger and prevalence of venereal disease.

2. Economic justice looking toward the abolition of
both extreme wealth and poverty.

Conclusions 359

3. Intelligent and sympathetic parental oversight
during infancy and early childhood, including
honesty with regard to sex physiology.

4. A reform of the educational system, with rational
training in hygiene and physiology adapted to
the various age periods. Coeducation should be
universal.

5. Adequate public recreation, properly supervised.

6. Prohibition in practice as well as by statute.

7. A reform of the marriage code, defining the finan-
cial and other obligations of husband and wife
toward one another, and toward possible offspring.
The mother should have prior rights of guardian-
ship as her sacrifices for the child so greatly ex-
ceed those of the father.

8. A reform of the divorce code making incompati-
bility alone sufficient cause for divorce, on the
application of either one of the married persons.
Exact definition as to the financial responsibilities
of the husband and wife should be made in the law
in order to insure justice, especially with regard
to the support of the children. Alimony in the
case of childless couples should be abolished.

9. The repeal of mediaeval legislation, such as the
restoration of conjugal rights, breach of promise,
alienation of affection, etc.

Sound marriage and divorce laws, supported by
adequate legislation for the repression of extra-
marital relations, should constitute the standard.

10. The complete emancipation of women.

11. The repeal of all legislation prohibiting birth
control.

12. The institution of birth control clinics under the
Public Health Service for the dissemination of ad-
vice and information.

13. The endowment of motherhood.

360 The Laws of Sea:

B. Measures designed to minimize extra-marital sex re-
lationships and to check the commercialization of vice.

1. The passage and enforcement of a law against
fornication.

8. The protection of minors of both sexes against
seduction by establishing 21 years as the age of
consent for both males and females, with penalties
graduated to accord with the various age periods.

3. The passage of a law making adultery a felony,
justified on the grounds of the venereal contamina-
tion of wedlock.

4. The establishment of autonomous bureaus of women
% police for the proper enforcement of the laws re-
garding sex.

5. The appointment or election of women as judges
in the higher and lower courts and as prosecuting
attorneys.

6. Women on juries.

7. All minors to be held merely as the state's wit-
ness against older persons, and all cases of minors
to be heard in the juvenile court.

8. The common parentage of an illegitimate child to
constitute marriage, or if either of the parents
was previously married, bigamy.

9. The illegitimate child to be placed on the same
plane with legitimate children.

10. The passage and enforcement of a law against
solicitation applicable to both sexes equally.

11. The injunction and abatement law.

12. Laws prohibiting the use of taxicabs, etc., for
immoral purposes.

13. Laws against pandering and procuring.

14. Laws prohibiting the use of hotels, rooming houses,
etc., for immoral purposes. Penalty applicable to
proprietor.

Conclusions 361

15. Laws for the control of commercialized amuse-
ments, dance halls, etc.

16. The passage and enforcement of a law making the
offering or giving of goods or money to any person
for purposes of prostitution punishable by a jail
sentence. Minimum term to be stated in the law.
The person to whom the money or goods was offered
or given to be held merely as the state's witness.

17. The Mann White Slave Act, laws against the
international traffic in women, and a law provid-
ing castration as the penalty for rape.

C. Measures for the control of venereal disease.

1. The repeal of all laws and regulations providing
for the examination of persons arrested for or
convicted of charges of immorality in connection
with court proceedings. Under the constitution
every person is considered innocent until she is
proven guilty, and no person can be forced to
testify against herself. Disease is not a crime.

2. The separation of the provinces of the Board of
Health and the Police Court, as in all other classes
of communicable disease.

3. The routine mental and physical examination of
all persons in state institutions, penal and other-
wise. Treatment as indicated.

4. A law defining continence as an essential measure
for the prevention of venereal contacts, and pro-
viding heavy penalties for exposure to venereal dis-
ease through extra-marital relations.

5. A law requiring all physicians and institutions to
report cases of venereal disease by name and ad-
dress under severe penalties.

6. A law or regulation placing all cases of venereal
disease under quarantine and providing for the
supervision and instruction of such cases in ac-

362 The Laws of Sex

cordance with the procedure followed in all other
classes of communicable disease. The wife, chil-
dren, or other close associates of a venereal patient
to be brought under supervision and treatment if
necessary.

7. A law making it a felony for a person under quaran-
tine for venereal disease to have sexual intercourse
with another person, either within or outside wed-
lock.

8. A law requiring the marriage license bureau to de-
termine whether the applicants for a marriage
license are under quarantine for venereal disease.
Authorized certificates of proximate date from the
local Board of Health of freedom from quaran-
tine to constitute adequate evidence.

9. A law or regulation providing for the compulsory
treatment under detention of patients refusing to
report regularly for ambulatory treatment.

10. Adequate clinical facilities for the free treatment
of venereal disease under the Public Health Service.

11. The appointment of women physicians as members
of the state and local Boards of Health, particu-
larly in the venereal disease department. These
physicians would not, of course, treat cases of
venereal disease. They would organize the work
and be of especial benefit in following up cases of
persons exposed to contamination, such as wives
and children.

12. The appointment of an adequate staff of public
health nurses, in connection with the Board of
Health, for follow-up work. All cases of venereal
disease reported to the Board to be visited and in-
structed by these nurses, as is now done in con-
nection with all other classes of communicable
disease.

13. A law prohibiting the advertisement or sale of

Conclusions 368

remedies for the secret self-treatment of venereal
disease, including venereal prophylactics.

14. A law prohibiting the use of the United States
mails for the advertisement or transportation of
remedies for the secret self-treatment of venereal
disease, including venereal prophylactics.

15. The enforcement of the existant laws against
quacks and unlicensed practitioners.

16. The abandonment of the government's present
policy of giving prophylactic treatment to soldiers
and sailors, and its substitution by court-martial
for the offense of exposure to venereal infection.

It will be seen that the first purpose in the proposed
social hygiene program is to eliminate the causes of pros-
titution by permitting the sex life of the race to flow into
its natural channels through facilitating early monogamous
marriage. Since love is the basis for monogamous unions
and is also the vehicle for sexual selection, divorce is re-
garded as a necessary corollary to this institution. Birth
control is obviously fundamental to successful marriage
under civilization, as is also the complete spiritual and
temporal emancipation of women.

The second purpose of the program is to seek the solu-
tion of the problem of the social evil in its causes, and not
in its symptoms. The demand for prostitution financed by
men is at the basis of the whole superstructure and only
by reducing the demand can the mass of prostitution be
minimized. As soon as men find that they come out on
the wrong side of the ledger so far as their pleasure is con-
cerned when they patronize prostitutes they will cease to
finance the institution, and it will perish from inanition.
Hundreds of years of experience have proven that it is
idle to persecute prostitutes, as they merely constitute a
supply which automatically rises to meet the demand created
by men, following an established law of commerce. Since

364

advertisement augments the demand, those who exploit male
sexual desire for their financial benefit are provided with
suitable penalization.

The seduction of minors in the continuance of the social
evil being of fundamental significance, the age of consent
is fixed at 21 years for both sexes. Protection, especially
during the adolescent period, is regarded as being of prime
importance both from the viewpoint of justice and expedi-
ency.

The third purpose of the program is to place the cam-
paign against syphilis, gonorrhoea and chancroid, on the
basis of the control of communicable disease, regarding
extra-marital intercourse merely as exposure to venereal
infection irrespective of morals. Conventions and morality,
in the ordinary meaning of the term, have nothing to do
with preventive medicine, and it is as destructive for physi-
cians to plan the campaign against syphilis, gonorrhea,
and chancroid on the basis of social conventions, as it would
be in the case of any other communicable disease. The
medical profession provides no defenses for the public
against venereal infection, and even permits the contamina-
tion of wedlock by persons known by them to harbor the
spirochete and the gonococcus. Swayed by their own
financial self-interest and inhibited from rational thought by
their own sordid experiences, they permit the racial life to
be threatened without making an effort to check the ravages
of venereal disease. They will treat patients for money,
but they will not endanger their professional prestige by
following the clear dictates of hygiene.

Since syphilis and gonorrhoaa are known to be among the
most dangerous and common of all the infectious maladies,
and since they are readily preventable, it behooves the lay
public to take matters into its own hands and to eliminate
from the service all public health officials who are incapable
of thinking in terms of preventive medicine. The public
must demand a sound system of quarantine for syphilis

Conclusions 365

and gonorrhoea if it desires adequate protection against
these infections, for although the medical profession has
had at hand sufficient scientific knowledge upon which to
base a program of prevention for upwards of a century,
medical men have failed supinely to adapt their measures
to obvious hygienic principles. In the campaign against
tuberculosis the rank and file of the medical profession was
in earlier years found to be equally recalcitrant.

The most important problem of the twentieth century,
barring none, is the problem of the Social Evil. Upon its
solution depends not only the health and happiness of vast
numbers of individuals, but the very life of the race. His-
tory is but the record of various civilizations that have risen
to the zenith and have then crumbled as a result of per-
versions of the sexual impulses. As man has progressed
further from a state of nature he has dissociated sex from
natural law, thereby denying the social order its funda-
mental basis. Rome fell not because of the crude strength
of the barbarians, but because licentiousness had sapped the
power of Roman manhood. Heretofore one sex alone has
been possessed of the power to govern the racial life, but
today both men and women together may bend their ener-
gies toward the perpetuation of civilization.

The ideal is clear: love, marriage, children and the home
constitute the essential framework of an enduring social
order. Prostitution and venereal disease strike at the very
basis of society and must give way if the fruits of civilization
are to be enjoyed.

The future with its glorious promise stands beckoning;
all that is necessary is courage to uphold the right and
faith in the omnipotence of human love.

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367

368 The Laws of Sex

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INDEX

Abolitionists, 59

Adultery laws, 117, 131

Age of consent laws, 118, 155

Anarchy in sex, 16

Apes, sex relations of, 37

Bachofen's hypothesis of promis-
cuity, 29
Birth control, 89

and self-control, 106

economic factors in, 108

ethics of, 107, 113

objections to, 97, 104

in practice, 111

relation to celibacy in women,
110

relation to monogamy, 109

statistics in Holland, 89
Brothels, description of, 61

relation to prophylaxis of vene-
real disease, 269

Case histories, 339

Celibacy in women, relation to
birth control, 110

Chancroid, 201
symptoms of, 201
treatment of, 203

Chastity, violation of, 51

Co-education as check to homo-
sexuality, 335

Contagious Diseases Acts, 56

Continence as a sanitary measure,
276

Contraceptive methods, 95

Democracy, definition of, 24
Divorce, frequency of, 182
justification of, 78
legal grounds for, 122
Double Standard, 53

Feeble-mindedness, 91
Fertilization, theories of, 100
Fornication laws, 117, 145
Free love, results of, 81

Gonorrhoea, 203
extra-genital infections, 205
in adults, 207
in girls, 206
in men, 208
in women, 210
systemic, 213
treatment of, in men, 209
in women, 213

Homosexuality, 330

checked by co-education, 335

frequency of, 332
Howard opposed to promiscuity, 33

Illegitimacy, 178

paternal responsibility in, 22
Immorality in children, 327
Incontinence, significance of, 308
Infantile impressions, 337
Injunction and abatement law, 114

Law, function of, in human rela-
tions, 84

impediment to love, 79
Laws, model, 223
License, results of, 86
Lock Hospitals, 65
Love, function of, 82

relation to sexual selection, 73,
173

superior to law, 79

Marriage, artificial barriers to, 75
biological origin of, 47
by capture, 41
by purchase, 41
ceremonials, 42
civil, 45
code, tendencies toward reform

of, 48

definition of, 30
effect of Puritan movement on,

45

function of, 80
laws, 119

371

372

Index

Marriage, legends of, 31

modern history of, 43

natural selection in, 73

origin of, 35

penalization of, S3

present basis of, 77

primitive, 39

protection of, against venereal
disease, 300

sexual abstinence in, 112
Masturbation, 319
Monogamy, basis of, 74

relation to birth control, 109
Morality, current definition of, 28
Morals, double standard in, 53

Napoleonic regulation of vice, 56
Natural selection in marriage, 73

Obscenity Act, Federal, 116

Police, and prostitution, 60

women, value of, 296
Polyandry, 46
Polygamy, 46
Promiscuity, arguments against, 33

theories of, 29

Prostitutes, and law of supply and
demand, 254

examination of, 58, 65

infection of, 249

lock hospital treatment of, 252

police court examination of, 252

social origin of, 68
Prostitution, and graft, 237

causes of, 52, 66

clandestine, 66

constitutionality of regulation
of, 239

definition of, 49

demand for, 231

expenditures on, 230

laws against, 114

legal definition of, 116

methods to discourage, 255

origin of, 50

regulation of, arguments for and
against, 245

relation of Boards of Health to
regulation of, 242

relation of men to, 231

relation of women to, 231

relation to marital life, 71

repression of, 360

significance of, 49

Prophylactic, packet, 282
stations, 66

objections to, 291
and enforcement of fornica-
tion law, 290
Prophylaxis of venereal disease,

259

efficacy of, 270
ethical aspects of, 275
in relation to education, 278
relation to brothels, 269

Quarantine of venereal disease, 247

Race suicide and venereal disease,

91

Red light districts, 60
Regulation of prostitution, aban-
donment of, 255

and graft, 237

arguments for and against, 245

constitutionality of, 239

relation of Boards of Health to,

242
Regulation of vice, 56

initial opposition to, 63
Regulation of vice, modern, 228
Reproduction, natural checks to, 93
Reproductive instinct, 103

Seduction of children, 177

penalties for, 51

relation of age to, 69
Segregation of vice, 56

in America, 59
Sex, affirmative aspects of, 25

education, 324

Freud's definition of, 313

in relation to law, 358

personal and racial function of,
83

psychology, 315

relation among the apes, 37
Sexual, abstinence in marriage,
112

conduct, standardization of, 170,
181, 185

license, 26

misconduct in children, 327

necessity, 67, 220

selection, relation of love to, 73,

173
Social evil, analysis of, 18

definition of, 15

problem, solution of, 349

Index

373

Social status and marriage, 75
Solicitation, laws against, 116
Syphilis, 191

hereditary, 197

late manifestations of, 195

symptoms of, 192

treatment of, 200

Taboos in sex, 26

Venereal disease, and race suicide,

91

among domestic servants, 299
control, 217, 361
in prostitutes, 249
problem and its solution, 292
prophylaxis of, 62, 259
protection of marriage against,

300

Venereal disease, public education,
62, 64

quarantine of, 247, 298

reporting of, 226

statistics, 187

Venereal diseases, history of, 190
Vice, commissions, 65

regulation of, 56

segregation of, 56

White slave trade, 57

Women, celibacy in, relation to

birth control, 110
economic dependence of, 76
police, value of, 296
relation of, to sexual order, 24
subjection of, 87

Wragg vs. Griffin, decision in case
of, 246

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21 The laws of sex

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