Married Love

Married Love or Love in Marriage
by Marie Carmichael Stopes, Sc.D., Ph.D.
Doctor of Science, London, Doctor of Philosophy Munich; Fellow of
University College, London; Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature,
and the Linnean Society, London
With Preface and Notes, by William J. Robinson, M.D.
1918
The Critic and Guide Company 12 Mt. Morris Park West New York

Editor's Preface
Author's Preface
1. The Heart's Desire
2. The Broken Joy
3. Woman's "Contrariness"
4. The Fundamental Pulse
5. Mutual Adjustment
6. Sleep
7. Modesty and Romance
8. Abstinence
9. Children

10. Society
11. The Glorious Unfolding
Notes

EDITOR'S PREFACE
The truly monogamic couple, where the man and the woman go chaste
to the marriage-bed, and go through life in mutual love and respect,
these feelings growing stronger as the years go by, finding full
satisfaction in each other, without any desire for any other man or
woman -- what nobler, what more appealing ideal can one conjure up?
Nor is it an utterly unrealizable ideal, for in spite of the sneers of the
cynics, there are such couples, even at the present time and even in our
largest Babylons...
We cannot prevent the cynics from sneering, but even they must admit
that monogamy is here, is the dominant system, is the only socially
approved and legally permitted system, and we have to deal with it.
And those radical sexologists who do not believe that monogamy is the
best system of sexual relationship, who are sure that it will not survive
for all eternity, that it will be replaced in the future by a higher
adjustment, will agree, even if they do so reluctantly, that for a few
years to come -- say five hundred to a thousand -- it will be the only
feasible, the only socially admissible and legally sanctioned system.
This being the case, it becomes the sexologist's most sacred duty to do
everything in his power to make the monogamic relationship as
pleasant as possible, to remove as far as possible all removable causes
of friction, to steer the frail matrimonial bark in safe channels, to guard
it from being wrecked on the Scylla of asceticism or the Charybdis of
excess; in short to help the Man and the Woman to go through life in
mutual love and respect, finding full satisfaction in each other, without
any desire for any other man or woman.
This is the object of Dr. Stopes' fine book. It would be too soon to

expect any one work to succeed in converting every home from the hell
that it often is into the paradise that it should be; but if a careful reading
of it preserves the temper of some men, improves the health and cures
the insomnia of some women, if it saves a few homes from disruption,
it will be decidedly worth while, and its author will be called blessed --
and will deserve to be.
There is plenty of love outside of marriage; there is not enough in
marriage; and they who labor to augment and intensify Love in
Marriage are doing good pro-social work.
Dr. William J. Robinson

AUTHOR'S PREFACE
MORE than ever to-day are happy homes needed. It is my hope that
this book may serve the State by adding to their number. Its object is to
increase the joys of marriage, and to show how much sorrow may be
avoided.
The only secure basis for a present-day State is the welding of its units
in marriage: but there is rottenness and danger at the foundations of the
State if many of the marriages are unhappy. To-day, marriage is far less
happy than appears on the surface. Too many who marry expecting joy
are bitterly disappointed; and the demand for "freedom" grows: while
those who cry aloud are generally unaware that it is more likely to have
been their own ignorance than the "marriage-bond" which was the
origin of their unhappiness.
It is never easy to make marriage a lovely thing; and it is an
achievement beyond the powers of the selfish, or the mentally cowardly.
Knowledge is needed, and as things are at present, knowledge is almost
unobtainable by those who are most in want of it.
The problems of the sex-life are infinitely complex, and for their
solution urgently demand both sympathy and scientific research.

I have some things to say about sex, which, so far as I am aware, have
not yet been said, or if said will bear repeating and reëmphasizing,
things which seem to me to be of profound importance to men and
women who hope to make their marriage beautiful.
This little book is less a record of a research than an attempt to present
in easily understandable form the clarified and crystallized results of
long and patient investigations. Its