ve, so frequently manifested both by men and women in
the very countries where flirtation most flourishes.

This ignorance, not merely of the art of love but even of the physical
facts of sexual love, is marked not only in women, especially women of the
middle class, but also in men, for the civilized man, as Fritsch long ago
remarked, often knows less of the facts of the sexual life than a
milkmaid. It shows itself differently, however, in the two sexes.

Among women sexual ignorance ranges from complete innocence of the fact
that it involves any intimate bodily relationship at all to
misapprehensions of the most various kind; some think that the
relationship consists in lying side by side, many that intercourse takes
place at the navel, not a few that the act occupies the whole night. It
has been necessary in a previous chapter to discuss the general evils of
sexual ignorance; it is here necessary to refer to its more special evils
as regards the relationship of marriage. Girls are educated with the vague
idea that they will marry,--quite correctly, for the majority of them do
marry,--but the idea that they must be educated for the career that will
naturally fall to their lot is an idea which as yet has never seemed to
occur to the teachers of girls. Their heads are crammed to stupidity with
the knowledge of facts which it is no one's concern to know, but the
supremely important training for life they are totally unable to teach.
Women are trained for nearly every avocation under the sun; for the
supreme avocation of wifehood and motherhood they are never trained at
all!

It may be said, and with truth, that the present incompetent training of
girls is likely to continue so long as the mothers of girls are content to
demand nothing better. It may also be said, with even greater truth, that
there is much that concerns the knowledge of sexual relationships which
the mother herself may most properly impart to her daughter. It may
further be asserted, most unanswerably, that the art of love, with which
we are here more especially concerned, can only be learnt by actual
experience, an experience which our social traditions make it difficult
for a virtuous girl to acquire with credit. Without here attempting to
apportion the share of blame which falls to each cause, it remains
unfortunate that a woman should so often enter marriage with the worst
possible equipment of prejudices and misapprehensions, even when she
believe