Male Continence

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Male Continence
by John Humphrey Noyes
1872
The Oneida Community has long been receiving almost daily letters of inquiry respecting its method of controlling propagation. Many of these letters evidently come from intelligent and respectable persons. We will give a few recent specimens. Here is one from an English clergyman:
London, March 11, 1872. MR. J. H. NOYES: Dear Sir: For some time past I have wished to ask you to inform me what is the "scientific discovery" you have made relating to Male Continence, referred to by Hepworth Dixon in New America, 6th Ed., 1867. As a clergyman I think a knowledge of it would be exceedingly useful to me and to some of my brethren in pastoral work.
Hoping you will take the trouble to answer my request, I am, Dear Sir, Yours most truly, ____ ____
The following is from an American clergyman:
_____, Ohio, May 11, 1872. MR. J. H. NOYES: Dear Sir:
Please send me a copy of your letter on "Male Continence." My object is to get some reliable information as to how to prevent conception, without injury to either husband or wife. I am a married man; and the delicate state of my wife's health, besides having a family of seven children, renders it very desirable, if not absolutely necessary, to adopt some safe means to prevent conception in the future. Any information you can give will be thankfully received.
I am a Congregational minister by profession.
Very respectfully yours, ____ ____
We have on file many letters from intelligent men and women in ordinary married life, who were induced to seek information about Male Continence by seeing and suffering the miseries of involuntary propagation. Here is a specimen remarkable for its details of horrors, which, according to recent disclosures, are being enacted everywhere, even in the high places of society, though seldom exposed. It is a mother who writes.
_____, May 12, 1872. (Addressed to a lady in the Community.) * * * I must tell you a sad story. Two years ago last September my daughter was married; the next June she had a son born; the next year in July she had a daughter born; and if nothing happens to prevent she will be confined for the third time in the coming June; that is three times in less than two years. Her children are sickly, and she is sick and discouraged. When she first found she was in the family way this last time, she acted like a crazy person; went to her family physician, and talked with him about having an operation performed. He encouraged her in it, and performed it before she left the office, but without success. She was in such distress that she thought she could not live to get home. I was frightened at her looks, and soon learned what she had done. I tried to reason with her, but found her reason had left her on that subject. She said she never would have this child if it cost her life to get rid of it. After a week she went to the doctor again. He did not accomplish his purpose, but told her to come again in three months. She went at the time appointed in spite of my tears and entreaties. I told her that I should pray that Christ would discourage her; and sure enough she had not courage to try the operation, and came home, but cannot be reconciled to her condition. She does not appear like the same person she was three years ago, and is looking forward with sorrow instead of joy to the birth of her child. I often think if the young women of the Community could have a realizing sense of the miseries of married life as it is in the world, they would ever be thankful for their home.
Your sincere friend, ____ ____
It has been impossible to refuse sympathy to such inquirers, or to entirely neglect their requests for information. But considering ourselves engaged in an unfinished experiment of social science, and therefore in the stage of learners rather than teachers, we have for many years contented ourselves with very brief answers. And we have been induced to pursue this policy partly by the fear that bad men might avail themselves of our sexual theories for licentious purposes. This fear, however, has proved to be nearly groundless, at least so far as the doctrine of Male Continence is concerned; for we have found licentious persons almost uniformly opposing that doctrine with bitterness and scorn. The real self-denial which it requires cannot be adjusted to their schemes of pleasure-seeking. And in any case the actual use of it by such persons could only improve their morals and mitigate the evils of their misdoings.
Six years ago we ventured a little beyond the limits of our reticent policy