Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY OF SEX

I SHOW you here the way to Ideal Marriage.
You know the honeymoon of rapture. It is all too short, and soon you decline into that morass of disillusion and depression, which is all you know of marriage.
But the bridal honeymoon should blossom into the perfect flower of ideal marriage.
May this book help you to attain such happiness.

Marriage—in Christian civilisation at least—is often a failure. On that point there can be no manner of doubt. It can be the gate of an earthly Eden, but it is, in actual fact, often a hell of torment.
It should be, in the true sense of the word, a Purgatory, that is, a state of purification ; but how rarely is that attained !
Then, should we abolish marriage ?
Many voices have clamoured for its destruction, but they have not shown a more excellent way.
And a far greater number have defended this immemorial institution—the most distinguished thinkers among them.
Marriage is sacred to the believing Christian.
Indispensable to the Social Order.
Absolutely necessary in the interests of the children.
It offers the only—even though relative—security to the woman’s love of love, and of giving in love.
And men too, on the whole, find in the permanent recogni- tion and responsibility of marriage, the best background for useful and efficient work.
For all these reasons, and also because I believe the permanence of monogamous love-unions to be in the line of sexual evolution and to offer the strongest altruistic leaven to the primitive egotism of Nature’s mighty urge—I, too, believe in marriage.
Much is suffered in and through marriage.
But without marriage, humanity would have to suffer much more.

But, accepting marriage as an institution, we have to decide whether we shall also accept the negation of happiness and the acute positive misery which we must often attribute to this cause, as inevitable ; or whether we shall try to heal and help.
No one who, like a doctor—particularly a gynaecologist or sex specialist—is constantly in a position to know what goes on ” behind the scenes ” of married life, can hesitate for a moment with his reply. He must risk all in order to improve human prospects and potentialities of enduring happiness in marriage.
The four corner-stones of the temple of love and happiness in marriage are :—

(1) A right choice of marriage partner.
(2) A good psychological attitude of the partners, both tothe world in general and to each other.
(3) A solution of the problem of parentage which meetsthe wishes of both partners.
(4) A vigorous and harmonious sex life.

Every serious writer on these topics has given wise advice on the choice of wife or husband ; doctors, theologians, philosophers have uttered their warnings, centuries ago, as urgently as in the past month !
So I need not recapitulate what has already been said. It lies outside the limits of this specialised study. But I will once more express regret that all the wisdom of the ages is still so much disregarded and that the majority, far from exercising discrimination and selection, blunder blindfold into marriage ; and also add my testimony to the ” cloud of witness ” to the paramount importance of sound health as a preliminary requisite. For nothing—or almost nothing !— handicaps the chance of happiness in marriage from the very first, so severely as ill-health on either side.

The psychology of marriage is also not directly relevant to our theme.
I would advise all whom it may concern—that is, all married people—to read the two excellent books by Löwen- feld,1 ” On Married Happiness,” and Th. von Scheffer,2 ” Philosophy of Marriage ” respectively, or, rather, to study them closely. And men may find much good food for thought in the fifth chapter of Gina Lombroso’s ” Soul of W oman.” 3
Scheffer says, ” Marriage is at once a concession and a demand. But if it is to thrive, there must be constant thought for the other partner ! ” It is also ” perhaps the strongest educative factor in the whole school of Life, and, like all schools, Life is no idle game.” 4
Its greatest peril is weariness, satiety, ennui, and the resultant alienation through which the woman generally suffers more acutely than her partner, who can take refuge in his main interest and preoccupation—his work ; whereas her nature, more profoundly and exclusively emotional, is dependent on personal relationships.
Gina Lombroso, daughter and secretary of the famous anthropologist, Cesare Lombroso, wife of the historian, Guglielmo Ferrero, mother of two children, and herself a doctor (both of philology and medicine) writes : ” The loneliness of mind and heart to which a man can condemn his wife, is much more painful and injurious than tyranny and violent brutality, which public opinion so decisively reprobates. For these ills are visible, grossly corporeal, and often only temporary, for the reaction of public opinion which they immediately provoke offers in itself some pro- tection and remedy. But the loneliness of desertion is an invisible, unimaginable anguish, which in itself makes resistance vain, and poisons every hour of the day, and all the days of an unhappy life, for it is a negation of life and hope, and the discouragement, the disintegration of purpose it pro- duces becomes more complete and incurable’with the years, and more unendurable than any swift and violent pang.
” A man should make it his business to let his wife partici- pate in his work, should take an interest in her difficulties, should guide her activities, reassure her timidities and doubts.” He can do all these things, for ” there is no ‘ man’s job ‘ in which a woman cannot help him, to some extent, materially or mentally ; there is no terrifying anxiety and perplexity (of hers) which he could not dispel with a word. Let him give her a share in his work, let him take the trouble to understand and guide her, and she will believe that she is loved and appreciated, and she will be happy, whatever sacrifices may be demanded of her in return.” I cannot refrain from quoting the thoughts which Signora Ferrero has so deeply felt.
And in the same manner—or on the same lines—many other specialists in human nature have expressed themselves. Albert Moll,1 in the first (1912) edition of his ” Manual of Sexual Science,”2 said : ” The link between husband and wife is re-enforced especially, when it is possible for her to stand shoulder to shoulder with him in his life-work, to be an adroit and efficient help-mate, even in details and in- directly. Perhaps this is the reason why we find such comparatively happy marriages among small tradespeople, where the woman often helps by serving in the shop, or among artisans, where she also often ‘ lends a hand with the job/
I entirely endorse these opinions, and would only add that the wife can do much to avert that fatal marital ennui by independent interests which she persuades him to share. For instance, an interesting book, or journey, or lecture or concert, experienced, enjoyed and described by her, with sympathy and humour, may often be a talisman to divert his mind from work and worry, and all the irritations arising therefrom. But, of course, he, on his side, must be able to appreciate her appreciation and her conversation.
In these comparative trifles, which are actually so tremen- dously important, in the exhilaration or depression they produce, intuitive and affectionate tact must be the guide of both partners. Only with such tact as guide can they ascend the happy mountain on which Paradise is built.
The constant peril of mental and psychic alienation in marriage may be combated in the ways I have just mentioned.
But the most effective means of defence—outside the sexual sphere—is always and undoubtedly a strong mutual interest in some subject that appeals to both with approximately equal force. This subject may vary, from the cultivation of flowers to the collection of postage stamps, from music to sport, from the game of chess to the science of motor cars I A common hobby keeps mutual sympathy fresh and active.

But what mutual interest could unite a married pair more closely than the love and care for the children they have themselves produced ? Children are the strongest mental link in normal married life, and those who ignore this ancient truth will often have occasion to repent.
Nevertheless, who should know better than the gynaeco- logical specialist that the problem of offspring is not so simple and easy of solution, for many modern people as for those enviable parents who see no problem, but leave the matter to the operation of higher forces—Nature or God? The gynaecologist has occasion every day to meet unhappy frustrated mothers, for whom one disappointment follows another, for whom barrenness means the shattered happi- ness of their marriage. Every day, too, he is compelled to see the tragedies of a marriage-bed which the husband deserts, out of fear of the consequences of fulfilled desire ; or of so many—ah, far too many—where the wife awaits the husband whom she truly loves, in fear and trembling, for the same reason. He knows—and he alone—how many marriages are shipwrecked, entirely and only because of the fear of unwanted pregnancies. The discussion of these immense contributory factors in married weal or woe is part of the task I have undertaken. But to discuss them helpfully we must have knowledge of the normal functions of sex. So, in this treatise, we will first consider the physio- logy of marriage.
And this is the argument I have here set forth : vigorous and harmonious sexual activity constitutes the fourth corner- stone of our temple. It must be solidly and skilfully built, for it has to bear a main portion of the weight of the whole structure. But in most cases it is badly balanced and of poor materials ; so can we wonder that the whole edifice collapses, soon ?
Sex is the foundation of marriage. Yet most married people do not know the A C of sex. My task here is to dispel this ignorance, and show ways and means of attaining both vigour and harmony in monogamous sexual relations.
I address myself to the medical profession, and to married men.

1 Löwenfeld, “Ueber das Eheliche Glück.” Siebener Publishing Co., Berlijn.
2 dz. von Scheffer, “Philosophie der Ehe.” Rös & Co., München.
3 Gina Lombroso, ‘De ziel van de vrouw.’
4 Havelock Ellis, ‘Kleine essays over liefde en deugd’. AC Zwart,
Londen.

1 Famous German specialist in sex questions, author of ” The Sexual Life of the Child,” etc.
2 ” Handbuch der Sexualwissenschaften.” Berlin.

To the doctors—because they should be the guides of the laity in these matters, too.
They should be ! How little they really are such guides, and why they so fail, is shown in this citation from Ludwig Fraenkel’s ” Normal and Pathological Sexual Physiology of W oman.” 1 ” I have let the Sexologist speak in such detail, firstly because he is perhaps the relevant specialist on these questions, and also because the majority ofgynaecologists, owing to a refined but certainly misguided 2 reticence or prudishness, know really very little about them.” 3
And I also address myself to married men, for they are naturally educators and initiators of their wives in sexual matters ; and yet they often lack, not only the qualifications of a leader and initiator, but also those necessary for equal mutual partnership 4
They have no realisation of their deficiencies. For the average man, of average ” normal ” genital potency, who performs his ” conjugal duties ” regularly and with physio- logical satisfaction to himself, still imagines that he has thereby met all the requirements his wife can make. And if she is not satisfied, and remains in a permanent condi- tion of ” suspended gratification,” then, with regret or indignation according to his own type of temperament, he simply puts her down as one of those ” sexually frigid ” women (from 20 to 80 per cent, of all women are supposed to be sexually frigid—a conveniently and conspicuously wide margin of error !), laments his bad luck, and drifts further and further apart from her.
If he has been fortunate enough to wed a woman of warmer and more spontaneous temperament, who is obvi- ously not indifferent to the rites of marriage—if those rites take place in the same invariably scheduled manner, with no varieties of local stimulation or sensory adornment—sexual satiety will in a few short years intrude itself into the con- sciousness of both, and equally imperil their marriage. For monotony can only be relieved by variation, and, to the unin- structed man, the only possible variation seems to be in the object of his efforts ; and the rift in the lute is there, and widens.
The thought that the defect and the failure might be on his side, that he himself might have prevented the alienation which he truly deplores—this enlightening and humbling truth never dawns upon him !
For he does not know that there are numberless delicate differentiations and modifications of sexual pleasure, all lying strictly within the bounds of normality, which can banish the mechanical monotony of the too well-known from the marriage-bed, and give new attractions to conjugal intercourse. Or, if he guesses this truth, he thinks it implies degeneracy and debauchery, for he fails to understand that what is physiologically sound may also be considered ethically sound.1 He thinks his wife is ” far above that sort of thing,” leaves her more and more to herself, seeks the diversity of stimulation he needs outside his home, and often ends in real debauchery in consequence !
This average husband does not even know that his wife’s sexual sensations develop and culminate to a slower rhythm than his own. He does not know at all that he must awaken her with delicate consideration and adaptation. He cannot understand why the Hindoo women, used to the sexual assiduity and skill of their own men, mock the clumsy Europeans as ” village cocks ” 5 ; nor does he appreciate the point of view of those Javanese who boast, not of the joy they received, but of the delight they gave.6 He does not guess that :

” The sweet fruit of divinity consumes
And fades to nothingness in women’s wombs
Because men know it not, and will not know
Because men are too small and weak of heart To use their flaming power ;
but give their art To haloes on veiled brows !
Not flesh aglow With raptures that they dream are theirs alone.
Yea, they would seize life’s central sacred fire And bear it hence like jewels of a throne,
But the assuagement of her deep desire 7
It is that crowns the Godhead in his own.”

The essence and significance of Don Juan is a mystery to most men, or is grossly misinterpreted. They should read Marcel Barrière’s ” Essai sur le Don-Juanisme Contem- porain/’ and learn that the soul of this arch-lover was not seeking the base triumph of snatching and throwing away, but ever and only the ecstasy of giving the joy of love
And in this sense the husband should act the part of Don Juan to his wife over again. Then, in giving delight, he will himself experience it anew and permanently, and his marriage will become ideal.

1 From Vol. III. of Liepmann’s ” Brief Manual of General Gynaecology.” Publisher, F. C. W. Vogel, Leipzig (1914), p. 41. (” Kurzgefasstes Hand buch der gesamten Frauenheilkunde “.)
2 My italics.
3 In the most recent years, this reticence has fortunately been gradually
discarded by the most eminent gynaecologists, as may be seen, for example in E. Kehrer’s monograph, ” Causes and Treatment of Sterility from the Modern Point of View, together with a Contribution on Disturbances of the Sexual Function, especially Dyspareunia.” (1922. Publisher, Stein- kopff, Dresden.) But for the greater number of medical practitioners and even gynaecologists, Fraenkel’s comments are still deplorably true.
4 And is even considered so by the Church. I shall refer to this later. See Chapter XVII.
5 Havelock Ellis : German version by Kurella of ” The Sexual Impulse.” Publisher, Kabitzsch, Leipzig.
6 Communicated by Breitenstein in ” Twenty-one Years in India : Borneo.” Cited in Ploss-Bartel’s ” Woman.” Publisher, Neufeld & Hennis, Berlin.
7 Translated from Werner von der Schulenburg : ” Don Juan’s Last Love.”

And if erotic genius does not characterise him, the man needs explicit knowledge if he is to be capable of inspiring such desire and imparting such joy.
He must know how to make love.
The ensuing chapters may be of help to him here. They can, in certain portions, be read by educated laymen without any difficulty. Other portions, however, need close and careful study. For I aim at giving my instructions and deductions an entirely scientific tone and basis, though at keeping free from superfluous pedantry. This manner of treatment, as well as the nature of the theme, make it impossible to avoid the use of many foreign words and technical terms. Readers who do not exactly comprehend any of these words can ask a doctor to explain their precise meaning.
For, to achieve our purpose, is well worth study.