for the reason that the parties to it are fitted to each other
for parenthood. That supreme consideration not only does not enter into
either the preliminary or after-thought of the matter, but is even held
to be an indecent topic of conversation between persons not already
married to each other.

The constituents of the average marriage are a man over-stimulated
sexually by mystery and ignorance, and a woman abnormally undersexed by
the course of self-repression and self-mutilation which have been taught
her from her earliest childhood as necessities of modesty, purity and
virtue. And then out of the carefully cultivated repugnance of the woman
and the savage, exulting, unrelenting passion of the man are produced
children, frequently welcome, seldom premeditated. And we are asked to
believe that out of such elements are created the best foundation for a
race or nation. Surely, surely, that combination of conditions is the
best for a race or a nation which produces the best individuals; and
quite as surely we should strive to bring about those conditions which
tend to produce the best individuals.

Then there is home. Home, sweet home! the perfect flower, we are told,
that blooms on the fair stem of marriage. Yet it is the very citadel of
ignorance, when it should be the school in which are taught the
beautiful phenomena of physical life. Home! where the simplest, purest
facts of life are converted into a nasty mystery and deliberately
endowed with the characteristics of impurity and sin; for what else is
the meaning of that solemn formula, which most of us have been taught,
that we were conceived in sin? What else is the meaning of the hush and
blush that go to any reference to sex, sign or manifestation of sex? Is
it not awful beyond the power of words to express that a man and a woman
come together in ignorance and beget children who are not even to obtain
the benefit of such knowledge as their unfortunate parents pick up by
the way, but must themselves begin the most responsible functions of
life, not only in equal ignorance, but with an added load of
misconceptions, sex-superstitions, immoral dogmas and probably physical
disabilities? A short time since a father was speaking to me of his son,
fourteen years of age, and plainly at an age when some of the beautiful
phenomena of sex-life were beginning to crowd upon him for notice. I
asked the man if he had talked with his son about the matter. His answer
was peculia