, there are many,
too many, old maids. With only ten per cent. to choose from (because
it is admitted that at least 90 per cent. of all men have
ante-matrimonial relations), what would our women do? They would
practically all have to give up any hopes of being married and
becoming mothers. And if these ten per cent., who have remained chaste
to their married day, were at least a superior class of men in every
instance, there would be some compensation in that. Unfortunately,
this is far from being the case, because, as all advanced sexologists
will tell you, there is generally something wrong with a man who
remains absolutely chaste until the age of thirty, thirty-five or
forty. It isn't moral principles in all cases; it is mostly cowardice,
or sexual weakness. And sad as it may be to state, these perfectly
good, chaste men do not generally make satisfactory husbands, and
their wives are not apt to be the happiest ones. I fully agree with
Professor Freud in his statement "that sexual abstinence does not help
to build up energetic, independent men of action, original thinkers,
bold advocates of freedom and reform, but rather goody-goody
weaklings." And still more to the purpose is the statement of
Professor Michels, who says:

"The desire that one's daughter may marry a man who, like herself, and
on an equal footing, will gain in marriage his first experience of the
most sacred mysteries of the sexual life, is one which _may lead to
profound disillusionments_. Even if to-day the demand for chaste young
men is extremely restricted, the supply is yet more so, and the
article _is of such an inferior quality_ that in actual practice the
attempt to satisfy this desire is likely to lead to results which will
fail altogether to correspond to the hopes inspired by a contemplation
of the abstract idea of purity. Many physically intact individuals of
both sexes _are far more contaminated_ than those who have had actual
sexual experience. Others again, superior in the abstract, and from
the physically sexual aspect, are _ethically inferior to the
unchaste_, so that the union with these latter would be more likely to
prove happy than a union with those who are nominally pure." And
further, "Careful fathers of marriageable daughters, who seek this
virginity in their sons-in-law, will, if they find it, seldom find it
a guarantee for the simultaneous possession of solid moral qualities."

All a girl has a right to demand is that her