Chapter I: The Theme

To write the life of a friend who is still very much alive presents difficulties, but they are compensated for in the present case by the fact that I am able to consult the subject of my work and her family, and draw much of my material direct from the fountain head. I had a similar experience when I wrote _The Life of Tolstoy_, but there my subject was eighty years of age and had nearly completed his life’s span, whereas my present subject is still young, and her work in full progress without any sign of exhaustion. In the former case I wrote of the ablest man I had met, and now I am writing of the ablest woman I have met. In both instances their personality and the influence exercised by their works, as well as misunderstanding and misrepresentation to which they have been exposed, invite attention.

Dr. Stopes’s world-wide reputation as a scientist, especially as a leading authority on palæobotany and coal-research, is not the sort of reputation that quickly reaches the general public. What has made her name rapidly familiar the world over has been the revolution she has effected in the general attitude towards sex. When, under the influence of painful personal experience, she began to touch that question, six years ago, no intelligible principles were recognisable among us to guide people in their matrimonial arrangements. There was, on the one hand, an obscure impression that virginity, celibacy, and the suppression of the sex-instinct, were ideals for normal men and women to aim at, while on the other hand there was an equally cloudy belief that married couples ought either to avoid marital relations or produce as many offspring as chance might send--regardless of whether such offspring were likely to be healthy or unhealthy and whether the parents could support them or not; regardless also of the effect continuous child-bearing would have on the health, or even on the life, of the mother. Guidance was sometimes offered on the basis of a misapplication of the 38th chapter of Genesis--which relates to a pre-Mosaic state of morality and has to be violently twisted before it can even be made to appear to apply to the problems of to-day. All this was merely a darkening of counsel with words, unsatisfying alike to those who read the Bible for themselves, and to those who sought reasonable guidance elsewhere for their sex-relationships.

Many felt the need of a sensible principle on which sex morality could rest, and in the chapter on “The Sex Question” in my book _Leo Tolstoy_ I ventured to say: “It may be necessary to overhaul the accepted ideals on this subject and to consider it afresh,” and had suggested the principle that “those things are good in sexual relations which make for the health, happiness, and efficiency of the present and future generations”; but this was a cold philosophic conclusion, and it was Dr. Stopes who supplied what was really needed, namely, an application to the detailed treatment of the sex problem of a keenly trained scientific brain in combination with artistic ability to convey her feelings, and an appreciation of the immense importance of the subject for the welfare of mankind.

Love and hunger are the two great driving forces of humanity, and we cannot afford to allow a taboo to inhibit the application of thought to the problems relating to either of these, nor can any system of morality be effective the reason for which cannot be so stated as to commend it to the acceptance of rational people frankly facing the facts life sets before us.

In relation to ordinary normal humanity Dr. Stopes agrees with what is said in the Bible: that it is not good that “man should be alone,” and with the implication of the text which says that “male and female created he them.” She also agrees with St. Paul’s injunction to husbands and wives: “Defraud ye not one the other, except it be by consent for a season”; and she is sure that it is nothing less than a crime for people recklessly, or deliberately, to bring into the world children who cannot be healthy or be decently provided for, and that it is also a crime to sacrifice the health and lives of women by demanding that they shall bear children beyond their capacity to do so healthily and willingly.

To indicate on the one hand scientific reasons why normal marital relations are favourable to the development of one’s mental and physical powers and one’s capacity to serve God and man, and why on the other hand the ascetic type of celibate is often cantankerous, embittered, and troublesome, required up-to-date knowledge of the action of secretions in the human body. To discover and point out the hidden rocks on which many marriages are wrecked owing to ignorance of a normal sex-rhythm in healthy women, was work specially suitable for a woman scientist. Considerable courage was needed to present these matters to the general public (whom they so greatly concern) in defiance of the social taboo that then still prevailed, and of a medical prejudice against the lay public being permitted to understand things that pertain to their peace. Besides these qualities, literary skill was needed, and much tact had to be employed, to present the case so that it should reach a wide circle of readers and convince them, without creating any avoidable friction.

The effect of Dr. Stopes’s efforts, in so short a time as six years, has amounted to nothing less than a revolution in the general attitude towards sex. She has created a new atmosphere and a new terminology. Even her opponents now use her language; the difference noticeable before and after the publication of _Married Love_ is most marked. Heaps of imitators and heaps of converts have appeared.

On the special question of birth control (which by the way is only briefly alluded to in a couple of pages of _Married Love_) a great deal had been written before Dr. Stopes dealt with the matter, and as long ago as 1868 there had even been a voluminous correspondence about it in a leading London newspaper, but, in spite of much discussion concerning this and some other special aspects of the sex problem, it somehow happened that up to the time when Dr. Stopes began her work ignorance on the general subject was so prevalent, and so widespread was the superstition that peculiar moral virtue pertained to ignorance, that it was still possible for an intelligent, alert, and scientifically-minded woman to experience great difficulty in obtaining information that to-day is readily accessible to every intelligent inquirer.

The battle is now set between a reasonable and an unreasonable moral code; and though the force of inertia and a long tradition of ignorance are on the side of the obscurantists, the ultimate triumph of light against darkness is already assured.

In this introductory chapter I will merely quote the opinions expressed by two writers well qualified to judge of the value of Dr. Stopes’s work. Owing to the extreme urgency of the need, the public has over-emphasized her birth control work and under-estimated her general work on sex. Concerning this latter Dr. Havelock Ellis, the leading world authority on sexology, writing in the _Medical Review of Reviews_ (Vol. 25, No. 2, Feb., 1919), says of some of the new observations in _Married Love_:--

“This seems to represent the most notable advance made during recent
years in the knowledge of women’s psycho-physiological life.”

And Mr. Luther Munday wrote:--

“There always have been situations experienced that neither the Bible
nor Science have hitherto explained.... But through your thought has
come, once for all, a message clean and pure, linking the mystery
of sex with the majesty of the Eternal and giving happiness to all
during life’s little part of immortality here on Earth.”

The following chapters furnish some account of the preparation Dr. Stopes had for her work, of the fields in which she has made her mark, of what she herself is like, of the personal experiences that directed her attention to the problems of sex, and of the opposition she has encountered.

It is greatly to be hoped that, both on the problems of sex and on other subjects, Dr. Stopes will add much in the future to what she has already given us.