Chapter V: Part II: The Wife

HINTS TO YOUNG WIVES 90-132

The wedding night--Should husband and wife sleep together or
apart?--The most healthful bed--The dignity and propriety of the
sexual instinct--The proper indulgence and the restraint
of sexual desire--Marital relations, when they should be
suspended--When they are painful--Barrenness, its causes and its
cures--Advice to wives who desire children--The limitation of
offspring--When it is proper--Justifiable means--Injurious
means--The crime of abortion--The nature of conception--Signs of
conception--How to retain the affections of a husband.

INHERITANCE 132-166

The varieties of inheritance--The legacy of beauty--The
complexion--What physical qualities each parent bestows--The
inheritance of fertility and longevity--Even deformities
sometimes transmitted--How to have beautiful children--Talent and
genius may be transmitted--The physical traits of fathers in
daughters, and of mothers in sons--Examples--Influence of
education on inherited qualities--Transmission of disease--Of
mutilations--How to avoid inherited ill tendencies--The excess of
women--How to have boys or girls at will--Twins and triplets.

PREGNANCY 167-218

Veneration of the pregnant woman--Signs of pregnancy--Quickening
--Mental changes--Miscarriage, its causes, symptoms, and
prevention--Mother's marks--What makes them?--How to avoid
them--Education of the child in the womb--Are double pregnancies
possible?--Instances of double children--Can a child cry in the
womb?--Is it a son or a daughter?--Are there twins present?--The
duration of pregnancy--How to calculate when the confinement will
come--Care of health during pregnancy--The food, clothing,
exercise, bathing, ventilation, and sleep--Effect on health of
body and mind--Relations of husband and wife during pregnancy.

THE CONFINEMENT 219-242

Preparations for childbirth--The signs of approaching labor--The
symptoms of actual labor--Attention is required during labor--To
the mother--To the child--To have labor without pain--The risks
of childbed--Weight and length of new-born children--The duration
of labor--Stillborn children--Imprudence after childbirth--To
preserve the form after childbirth.