Chapter XXXVIII: Section 5: A Degradation of the Female Sex

In the Neo-Malthusian propaganda there is yet another fact which--should be seized by every married woman, because it is a clear indication of a tendency to reduce women to degrading subjection. No recommendations of limited intercourse or of self-restraint according to the dictates of reason or of affection are to be found in the writings of birth controllers. Unrestrained indulgence, without the risk of consequences, is their motto. To this end they advocate certain contraceptive methods, and the reader should note that these methods require precautions to be taken solely by the woman. If she fails to take these precautions, or if the precautions themselves fail, all responsibility for the occurrence of conception rests on her alone; because her Malthusian masters have decided that she alone is to be, made responsible for preventing the natural or possible consequences of intercourse. Why? That is a very interesting question, and one to which a leading Neo-Malthusian has given the answer.

In 1854 there was published, _Physical, Sexual and Natural Religion: by a Graduate of Medicine_. In the third edition the title was altered to _The Elements of Social Science_, and the author's pseudonym to _A Doctor of Medicine_. This book, which contains over 600 pages of small type, may be truthfully described as the Bible of Neo-Malthusians, and includes, under the curious heading _Sexual Religion_, a popular account of all venereal and other diseases of sex. In the Preface to the first edition, [74] the anonymous author states: "Had it not been the fear of causing pain to a relation, I should have felt it my duty to put my name to this work; in order that any censure passed upon it should fall upon myself alone." The relation appears to have had a long life, because anonymity was preserved for fifty years, presumably out of respect for his, or her, feelings: and he, or she, must have lived as long as the author, who died in 1904 at the age of seventy-eight; because the author's name was not revealed until a posthumous edition, the thirty-fifth, appeared in 1905, from which we learn that the book was written by the late Dr. George Drysdale, brother of the first President of the Malthusian League, and uncle of the present incumbent. The last edition, in recompense for its smudgy type, contains a most welcome announcement by the publisher:

"PUBLISHER'S NOTE.--... It is due alike to the reader and the publisher
to explain why the present edition is printed (in the main) from
stereotypes that have seen fifty years' service. The cost of resetting
the work would be prohibitive on the basis of present (and probable
future) sales. To some extent the plates have been repaired; but such
an expedient can do no more than remove the worse causes of offence."

But the fact with which I am at present concerned is that in every edition all contraceptive methods that apply to the male are _condemned_ for the following reasons:

"The first of these modes [_coitus interruptus_] is physically
injurious, and is apt to produce nervous disorder and sexual
enfeeblement and congestion, from the sudden interruption it gives to
the venereal act, whose _pleasure_ moreover it interferes with. The
second, namely the sheath, _dulls the enjoyment_, and frequently
produces impotence in the man and disgust in both parties; so that it
also is injurious" (p. 349).... "Any preventive means, to be
satisfactory, must be used by the woman, as _it spoils the passion and
the impulsiveness_ of the venereal act _if the man have to think of
them_" (p. 350).

The italics are mine, but the following comments are by a woman, who was moreover the first woman to qualify in medicine--the late Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell.

"Here, in this chief teacher of the Neo-Malthusians, the cloven foot is
fully revealed. This popular author, who in many parts of his book
denounces marriage as the enslavement of men and women, who sneers at
continence, and rages at Christianity as a vanishing superstition--all
under a special pretence of benevolence and desire for the advancement
of the human race, here clearly, shows what he is aiming at, and what
his doctrines lead to. Male sexual pleasure must not be interfered
with, male lust may be indulged in to any extent that pleasure demands,
but woman must take the entire responsibility, that male indulgence be
not disturbed by any inconvenient claims from paternity. Whatever
consequences ensue the woman is to blame, and must bear the whole
responsibility.

"A doctrine more diabolical in its theory and more destructive in its
practical consequences has never been invented. This is the doctrine of
Neo-Malthusianism." [75]