How to Keep the Bloom and Grace of Youth

1. The question most often asked by women is regarding the art of retaining, with advancing years, the bloom and grace of youth. This secret is not learned through the analysis of chemical compounds, but by a thorough study of nature's laws peculiar to their sex. It is useless for women with wrinkled faces, dimmed eyes and blemished skins to seek for external applications of beautifying balms and lotions to bring the glow of life and health into the face, and yet there are truths, simple yet wonderful, whereby the bloom of early life can be restored and retained, as should be the heritage of all God's children, sending the light of beauty into every woman's face. The secret:

2. Do not bathe in hard water; soften it with a few drops of ammonia, or a little borax.

The Abandoned Lover

The Abandoned Lover. But what shall the abandoned lover do? Let us take the case of A and B, and let A stand for any man and B for any woman; or, vice versa, let A be the woman and B the man, for in jealousy and love what applies to one sex is applicable with practically the same force to the opposite sex. Suppose A is intensely jealous of and deeply, passionately in love with B; but B is utterly indifferent and does not care what A may feel or do. A and B may be married or not; this does not alter the case materially.

Suppose B, if unmarried to A, goes off and marries another man, or, if married to A, goes off and leaves him; or suppose B does not love anybody else, but just remains indifferent to A's advances or repels him because she cannot reciprocate his love. Unrequited love alone can cause almost as fierce tortures as the most intense jealousy. And A suffers tortures. What shall he do? What shall he do to save himself—to save his health, his mind, his life? For he is unable to eat, unable to sleep, unable to work, and he feels that he is going to pieces. He has lost his position and is in danger of losing his reason.

REMEDIES FOR JEALOUSY

We are all agreed that prevention is more important than cure. But when a patient comes with a fully developed disease it is futile to speak to him of prevention. It is too late to sermonize. What he wants and what he needs is a cure, if such can be had. What has preceded has reference chiefly to the prophylaxis of jealousy, to the prevention of the development of this disease in the future.

The question is: Is there a remedy for this malady? Is there a cure for this horrible disease of jealousy?
The conditions are extremely complex, and the remedy must be fitted to the circumstances. Let us assume that the husband neglects his wife and causes her to be jealous, not because he is in love with another woman, but because he is flirtatious, light-headed, feather-brained and inconsiderate.

Such cases are in the great majority. Many husbands who like or love their wives and who believe themselves secure in their love think it is quite proper for them to hunt for new conquests and to carry on petty love affairs with as many girls or women as they comfortably can.

Causes of Jealousy part3

Wives have been known to do everything in their power to exhaust and weaken their husbands, to make them physically unattractive, only to keep them. And so powerful is this primitive, childish, savage feeling, this desire for exclusive monopoly, that there is nothing a jealous wife, sweetheart or mistress may not do in order to retain the man, in order to regain him, or, having lost him irretrievably, in order to revenge herself. And what is said about the woman is applicable with equal force to man. It is a huge mistake to assume that jealousy is woman's prerogative, her particular characteristic, or even that it is stronger in her than in man. A man can be as savagely jealous as any woman and suffer the same tortures of hell.

Jealousy Defeats Its Object. One of the worst features about jealousy is that it defeats its own object. We have been told, as stated before, that jealousy was once upon a time a racial instinct, that by frightening away rivals it helped to found the family and to keep it chaste and pure. Quite the contrary is true now. More than one man has, by accusing his innocent wife of infidelity and by torturing her with baseless suspicions, driven her into the arms of a lover.

Causes of Jealousy

And Iwan Bloch, than whom no greater investigator in the field of sexology ever lived, asks the question: "Is it possible for any one to be simultaneously in love with several individuals?" And he immediately says: "I answer this question with an unconditional 'yes.'" And he says further: "It is precisely the extraordinary manifold spiritual differentiation of modern civilized humanity that gives rise to the possibility of such a simultaneous love for two individuals. Our spiritual nature exhibits the most varied coloring. It is difficult always to find the corresponding complements in one single individual."

Prof. Robert Michels says: "It is Nature's will that the normal male should feel a continuous and powerful sexual attraction towards a considerable number of women.... In the male the stimuli capable of arousing sexual excitement (this term is not to be understood here in the grossly physical sense) are so extraordinarily manifold, so widely differentiated that it is quite impossible for one single woman to possess them all."
Prof. von Ehrenfels wittily remarks that if it were a moral precept that a man should never have intercourse more them once in his life with any particular woman, this would correspond far better with the nature of the normal male and would cost him far less will-power than is needed by him in order to live up to the

Causes of Jealousy

The essential factor in jealousy is fear. Fear of losing the beloved object, fear of losing the person who provides you with sexual satisfaction, or the mere economic fear of losing a material provider. The latter kind of fear is, of course, more often manifested—even though unconsciously—in women. Women who have no love for their husbands are nevertheless often fiercely jealous, because consciously or unconsciously they are afraid that their husbands may desert them for other women, and that they may thus find themselves in a precarious economic condition.

Another factor in jealousy is wounded vanity. We do not like to feel that somebody is considered superior to us. This feeling of wounded vanity is present in other varieties of envy or rivalry. A person who loses in a race or gets a lower mark in his examination than his rival may be filled with a feeling of envy and hatred almost equal in intensity to, though never as painful as, sexual jealousy.

JEALOUSY AND HOW TO COMBAT IT

He or she who has been so unfortunate as to experience the pangs—or fangs—of jealousy will readily admit that it is one of the most painful, if indeed not the most painful, of all human emotions. The suffering that it metes out to its victims is indescribable. No other single human emotion so affects the body, so upsets the mind, so deranges every function, as does jealousy. The torture that it causes makes the sufferer a truly pitiable object: the complete loss of sleep and complete loss of appetite may result in a serious impairment of the sufferer's health, while the rage it often gives rise to may lead to actual insanity, or at least to great mental disturbance. With good reason has popular fancy pictured this cursed emotion as a green-eyed monster.

Jealousy is a primitive emotion. It is present not only in the primitive races, but even in animals. And being a primitive emotion, we can hardly hope to succeed in eradicating it entirely. Not in the immediate future, at any rate. But we can modify it.

Women and Love

Infatuation and Being in Love. While, as said, the feeling of love does not readily lend itself to dissection, to analysis, still we can differentiate some phases of it. We can differentiate between "being in love," "infatuation," and "love." Being in love is, as just indicated, a pathological, morbid phenomenon. The person who is in love is not in a normal condition. He can see nothing, he cannot be argued with, as far as his love is concerned. She is the acme of perfection, physical, mental, and spiritual; nobody can be compared with her. And, of course, the man is anxiously eager to marry the object of his love—unless insuperable obstacles are in the way; for instance, if the man happens to be married.

Infatuation may be as strong as any "being in love" feeling. But with this difference. In infatuation the man may know that the object of infatuation is an unworthy one, he may despise her, he may hate her, he may pray for her death, he may do his utmost to overcome the infatuation. In short, infatuation is a feeling, chiefly physical, which the man can analyze, the unworthiness and absurdity of which he may acknowledge, but which he is unable to resist or overcome. He feels himself bewitched; he feels himself caught in a net, he is anxious to tear asunder the meshes of the net, but is not strong enough to do it.

Women and Love

Other Requisites. But a foundation is not a whole structure. To insure the stability of a high intricate building we must give it a good solid foundation; but the foundation does not make the building. That still remains to be built. So sexual attraction is the foundation of all love, but it does not constitute love. Many more factors, many more wonderful stones are needed before the wonderful structure called love is brought into existence. This wonderful structure sometimes goes up in the twinkling of an eye, as if by the touch of a magic wand—who has not seen or heard of instances of "love at first sight!"—but the rapidity of the growth of the structure called Love does not militate against our assertion that many stones, much variegated material, and a strong cement are needed for its completion. Fairies sometimes work very quickly.

A little thought will show clearly that Love is not merely sexual love, not merely a desire to gratify the sexual instinct. If love were merely sexual desire, then one member of the opposite sex, or at least one attractive member, would be as good as any other. And indeed in animals and in the lower races, where love as we

WHAT IS LOVE?

I shall not attempt to give a definition, either brief or extensive, of Love. Many have tried and failed, and I shall not attempt the impossible. Nor shall I attempt to discuss Love in all its innumerable details. To do so would alone require a book many times more voluminous than the one you have before you. I shall, however, endeavor to raise a corner of the veil which surrounds this most mysterious, most baffling and most complex of all human emotions, so that you may get a glimpse into its intricate mechanism and perhaps understand what Love is in its essence at least.

Sexual and Platonic Love. There are two widely different, in fact diametrically opposite, opinions as to what constitutes Love. One opinion is that Love is sexual love, sexual attraction, sexual desire. To people holding this opinion love and sexual desire or "lust" are synonymous. And they laugh and sneer at any attempt to idealize love, to present it as something finer and subtler, let alone nobler, than mere sex attraction. The writer has heard one cynical woman—and more than one man—say: Love? There is no such a thing. Sexual intercourse is love, and that's all there is to it.

A RATIONAL DIVORCE SYSTEM

Of course, I am in favor of a rational divorce system. The difficulties, the obstacles, the expense, with which divorce is now surrounded in most civilized countries is simply disgraceful. Make marriage harder and divorce easier, has always been my motto. When life together becomes unbearable then it is better for both husband and wife to cut the tie and to get divorced. Divorce is preferable to separation, because both spouses may be able to lead a new and happier life. Where there are no children to be taken care of a simple declaration of husband and wife repeated perhaps after a lapse of three or six months should be quite sufficient for the granting of a divorce.

 Where there are children the state should make sure that they will be properly taken care of before a divorce is granted. Where only one party demands a divorce the case should be carefully studied by a commission which should include in its personnel physicians and psychologists; and adultery should most certainly not be the only cause for divorce.

ADVICE TO THE MARRIED AND THOSE ABOUT TO BE

Whether marriage in its present form is an ideal institution destined to endure forever, whether it is in need of radical reforms before it can be considered ideal, or whether it has fundamental irremediable defects, are questions which we are not going to discuss here. The fact is that at the present time the greatest part of the adult population of the world is married; and the part that isn't would like to be.

 And the greater part of civilized humanity living in a state of monogamic marriage, it behooves us to make the best of it, to get out of it the greatest amount of happiness that we can, obviate as much unhappiness as possible, and to do everything in our power to make it permanent. Separation or divorce are remedies of last resort, and people have recourse to them when they are at the end of their tether. But the proper thing to do is to avoid the necessity of having to have recourse to them. And I believe that a careful, thoughtful perusal of this chapter will help husband and wife to get along better, to avoid unnecessary friction and to retain the mutual physical and spiritual attraction which we call Love for a longer period than might otherwise be the case.

MATERNAL IMPRESSIONS

It is believed by many people that strong impressions made upon the mother during pregnancy may produce marks or defects in the child. This belief dates from earliest antiquity, and is widespread among all races. The belief particularly refers to the emotions of fright or sudden surprise; thus it is believed that if a woman during pregnancy should be frightened by some animal, the child might carry the mark of the animal upon its body, or it might even be born in the shape of the animal. Thousands of such alleged cases are given in proof. There is hardly a layman, or, particularly, a laywoman, who does not claim to know of authentic cases of maternal impressions.

It is a thankless task to try to shatter well-established beliefs, and I do not hope to succeed in persuading all my readers that all the stories and examples of maternal impressions are untrue and lack scientific foundation. But I consider it my duty to state my belief, whether you accept it or not. In my opinion there is not a single well-authenticated case of maternal impression. There is hardly a case of defect or monstrosity where the cause is supposed to be due to maternal impression, which cannot be explained in some natural way, or simply by accident. Thousands of women are frightened or shocked by disagreeable sights, by crippled men, by animals, and still their children are born perfectly normal.

Polygamous Tendencies in Man

We now come to the last point in our discussion: the polygamous or varietist tendencies in the male versus the monogamous tendencies in the female. No matter what our moralists, who try to fit the facts to their theories instead of fitting their theories to the facts, may say, the fact remains that man is a strongly polygamous or varietist animal. That many men live through their lives without having had relations with any women except their wives is cheerfully admitted. I assert this in spite of the incredulous smiles of all the cynics and roués in the world.

I have known personally a great number of such men. But that they do it without any struggle, and in some cases a very severe struggle, is emphatically denied. And that hundreds of thousands of men are unequal to the struggle—or do not care to engage in any struggle—and live a sexually promiscuous life—anybody who knows anything about life as it is will testify. And his testimony will be corroborated by the reports of the vice commissions and the statements of disreputable-house keepers. To a great percentage of men a strictly

Choice Between Physical and Spiritual Love

But to return to our thesis: the difference between man's and woman's sex and love life. If a man had to make his choice between physical love, i.e., actual sex relations and spiritual love, i.e., love making, kisses, love letters, etc., he would generally choose the former. If a woman had to choose, she would generally choose the latter. The man and the woman would prefer both at the same time: physical and spiritual love. But that is not the question.

The question is: if it came to a choice; and then the results would be as I have just indicated. The correctness of my statements will be corroborated by anybody having some knowledge of human sexuality. A man can fully enjoy sexual intercourse without any preliminaries; with a woman the preliminaries are of the utmost importance, and when these are lacking she is often incapable of experiencing any pleasure. Nay, the feeling of pleasure is not infrequently replaced by a feeling of dissatisfaction and even disgust. A man cares more for the physical and less for the mental and spiritual attributes of his sexual partner; with the woman just the opposite is the case.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAN'S AND WOMAN'S SEX AND LOVE LIFE

In reading books or listening to lectures on sex, you will meet with statements which will seem to you contradictory. One time you will read or hear that the sex instinct is much more powerfully developed in man than it is in woman; next time you will come across the statement that sex plays a much more important rôle in women than it does in men. One time you will hear that men are oversexed, that they are by nature polygamous and promiscuous, while woman is monogamous and as a rule sexually frigid; the next time you will be assured that without love a woman's life is nothing, and you will be confronted with Byron's well-known and oft quoted two lines: Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence.

These contradictions are only apparent and result from two facts: first, that the words sex or sexual instinct and love are used indiscriminately and interchangeably as if they were synonymous terms, which they are not; second, there is failure to bear in mind the essential differences in the natures and manifestations of the sexual instincts in the male and the female. If these differences are made clear, the apparent contradictions will

Disastrous Effects of Wrong Teachings

What disastrous effects wrong teaching which inoculates the minds of our women with wrong ideas may have, the following three cases reported briefly in The Critic and Guide, will show:
Case One was a girl of twenty-four, of well-to-do parents, a college graduate. She was engaged to a really very nice, sympathetic young man, who undoubtedly would have made her an excellent husband. But during her last two years in college she became imbued with the single standard stupidity, and "chastity for men, votes for women" became her slogan.

 She asked her fiancé if he had been absolutely chaste before he met her. He did not want to play the hypocrite, and he told her the truth that he had not. But he assured her that he had never been infected and that his general and sexual health was in excellent condition. Being then in an exalted mood, she impulsively broke the engagement, declaring that her husband will have to be as "pure" as she was. She soon regretted her step, because she loved the man; but pride did not let her take the initiative towards a reconciliation, and in the meantime her former fiancé fell in love with and married another girl. After four years had passed, and she was in danger of becoming an old maid, she married a man considerably beneath her socially and intellectually, and in every way inferior to her former fiancé. Her marriage is not a happy one.

THE SINGLE STANDARD OF SEXUAL MORALITY

When a man marries a girl he expects her to be chaste, that is, a virgin, without any sexual experiences. Of men, the same chastity is not expected as a general thing. As long as a man is healthy, free from venereal disease, his previous sexual experiences do not constitute a barrier to his marriage. This is what is known as the double or duplex standard of sex morality.

During the past few years a number of high-minded and well-meaning men and women have been trying to abolish this double standard and to introduce a single standard of morality. That is, they are demanding that the man going to the marriage bed should be just as chaste, just as virginal as his wife is. Whether or no the efforts of these good men and women will ever be crowned with success we will leave open. Whether or no it is even desirable that their efforts should be crowned with success we will also leave open. A complete discussion of these questions belongs to a more advanced book on sexual ethics.

Women and Rape

Having intercourse with a woman by force, without her consent, is called rape. When the woman is not in a condition to give consent, as when she is insane, feebleminded, unconscious or drunk, or when she is not of the age at which she can legally give consent, it also constitutes rape, and the punishment is the same. The age of consent differs in different countries and in different States, but as a rule is between sixteen and eighteen years. That is, if a girl under the legal age of consent should give her consent or even if she should urge the man to have intercourse with her the man would be punished just as if he had committed rape.
The punishment for rape is very severe in all civilized countries and ranges from ten years' imprisonment to life imprisonment, while in some States in this Union the punishment is death.

It is not my intention to go into an exhaustive discussion of this painful subject. In this brief chapter I merely wish to bring out two facts.

ADVICE TO FRIGID WOMEN, PARTICULARLY WIVES

I wish to give you a piece of advice which is of extremely great importance to you. I hesitated somewhat before writing this chapter, but the welfare of so many women depends upon following this advice, and I have seen the lives of so many wives spoiled on account of not having followed it, that I decided to devote a few words to the subject.

As you know, about one-third or one-quarter of all women (in other words, one out of every three or four) are sexually frigid. They either have little or no sexual desire, or if they do have, they experience no voluptuous sensation during the act, and never have an orgasm. If you are unmarried, well and good. But if you are married and happen to belong to the frigid type, then don't inform your husband of the fact. It may lead to great and permanent trouble. Some husbands don't care. Some are even glad if their wives are frigid. They can then consult their own wishes in the matter, they can have intercourse whenever they want and the way they want.