sexual intercourse occurs as infrequently as once or twice in a month,
the man, by living thus continently, will find it much more easy to
maintain his continence during the twelve-month period after his wife
becomes pregnant before he can properly have intercourse with her
again, than would be the case if he had had sexual relations much more
frequently.

That the man desires intercourse much more frequently than as above
outlined and that the woman, in the vast majority of cases, does not
desire intercourse except for procreation and about as frequently as
above indicated is, without any reasonable doubt, due to hereditary
tendencies. Under primeval conditions, and in fact, until
comparatively recent times, the vast majority of mankind were
polygamous, the strong men of the race--those who procreated their
kind--having as many wives as they could support and protect, the weak
men of the race being crowded aside, sometimes castrated, to become
the burden bearers for the strong.

Under conditions of polygamy the woman is rarely subjected to sexual
intercourse for other than procreative purposes, and even granting
that the man has intercourse for procreation only, if he had twelve
wives, he would be having it twelve times as frequently as any one of
them. That these experiences on the part of a long line of maternal
ancestors should lead the women of today to desire sexual intercourse
for procreation only, is easy to understand; that the impulses
transmitted along the paternal line of ancestors should lead the men
of today to desire intercourse far more frequently than this can,
under monogamous conditions be indulged, is also easy to understand.

8. _How frequently may sexual intercourse be indulged, in the marriage
state?_

If one is to overstep the bounds mentioned above, i.e., to indulge in
sexual intercourse once or twice in a month for procreation only and
not at all during the period of pregnancy and childbed period, the
limit is then set, not by strictly normal and anthropological
considerations, but by the health of the individuals. The author has
seen young married couples who had carried their sexual intercourse to
such extremes as seriously to deplete the physical vigor and menace
the health of both parties. Just how frequent indulgence will have
this effect in any particular case is impossible to say. In some cases
twice a week may have this effect; in other cases once in twenty-four
hours might be bor