ed impossible to him
through social institutions or prejudices, the consequence is that man
is checked in the development of his being, is left to a stunted life
and retrogression. What the consequences thereof are, our physicians,
hospitals, insane asylums and prisons can tell,--to say nothing of the
thousands of tortured family lives. In a book that appeared in Leipsic,
the author is of the opinion: "The sexual impulse is neither moral nor
immoral; it is merely natural, like hunger and thirst: Nature knows
nothing of morals;"[61] nevertheless bourgeois society is far from a
general acceptance of this maxim.

The opinion finds wide acceptance among physicians and physiologists
that even a defectively equipped marriage is better than celibacy.
Experience agrees therewith. In Bavaria there were, in 1858, not less
than 4,899 lunatics, 2,576 (53 per cent.) of them men, 2,323 (47 per
cent.) women. The men were, accordingly, more strongly represented than
the women. Of the whole number, however, the _unmarried_ of both sexes
ran up to 81 per cent., the married only to 17 per cent., while of 2 per
cent. the conjugal status was unknown. As a mitigation of the shocking
disproportion between the unmarried and the married, the circumstance
may be taken into consideration that a not small number of the unmarried
were insane from early childhood. In Hanover, in the year 1856, there
was one lunatic to every 457 unmarried, 564 widowed, 1,316 married
people. Most strikingly is the effect of unsatisfied sexual relations
shown in the number of suicides among men and women. In general, the
number of suicides is in all countries considerably higher among men
than among women. To every 1,000 female suicides there were in:[62]

England from 1872-76 2,861 men
Sweden " 1870-74 3,310 "
France " 1871-76 3,695 "
Italy " 1872-77 4,000 "
Prussia " 1871-78 4,239 "
Austria " 1873-78 4,586 "

But between the ages of 21 and 30, the figures for _female suicides is
in all European countries higher than for males_, due, as Oettingen
assumes, to sexual causes. In Prussia the percentages of suicides
between the ages of 21 to 30 were on an average:

Years. Males. Females.
1869-72 15.8 21.4
1873-78 15.7 21.5

In Saxony there were to every 1,000 suicides between the ages of 21 to
30 these averages:

Years. Males. Females.
1854 14.