The Prevention of Jealousy.

LIII. CONCLUDING WORDS 409

WOMAN: HER SEX AND LOVE LIFE

CHAPTER ONE

THE PARAMOUNT NEED OF SEX KNOWLEDGE FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN

Why Sex Knowledge is of Paramount Importance to Girls and
Women--Reasons Why a Misstep in a Girl Has More Serious
Consequences than a Misstep in a Boy--The Place Love Occupies in
Woman's Life--Woman's Physical Disabilities.

All are agreed--I mean all who are capable of thinking and have given
the subject some thought--that for the welfare of the race and for his
own physical and mental welfare it is important that the boy be given
some sex instruction. All are not agreed as to the character of the
instruction, its extent, the age at which it should be begun and as to
who the teacher should be--the father, the family physician, the
school teacher or a specially prepared book--but as to the necessity
of sex knowledge for the boy there is now substantial agreement--among
the conservatives as well as among the radicals.

No such agreement exists concerning sex knowledge for the girl. Many
still are the men and women--and not among the conservatives only--who
are strongly opposed to girls receiving any instruction in sex
matters. Some say that such instruction--except a few hygienic rules
about menstruation--is unnecessary, because the sex instinct awakens
in girls comparatively late, and it is time enough for them to learn
about such matters after they are married. Others fear that sex
knowledge would destroy the mystery and romance of sex, and would rob
our maidens of their greatest charms--modesty and innocence. Still
others fear that sex instruction would tend to awaken the sex instinct
in our girls prematurely; would direct their thoughts to matters about
which they would not think otherwise; and they argue that the warnings
about venereal disease, prostitution, etc., which are an integral part
of sex instruction, tend to create a cynical, inimical attitude
towards the male sex, which may even result in hypochondriac ideas and
antagonism to marriage.

I do not deny that there is a grain of truth in all the above
objections. Sex instruction does cause _some_ girls to think of sex
matters earlier than they otherwise would, and some girls have been
made bitter and hypochondriac, and disgusted with the male sex. But it
would not be difficult to demonstrate that it was not sex instruction
_per se_