Safe Marriage | Page 2

woman. For many of the

thoughts and expressions used I am indebted to large numbers of men
and women whom I cannot name, and with whom I have been
personally and professionally associated in different parts of the world.
I am also indebted to the following medical journals for the publication,
during the last five years, of many letters, articles, notes, etc.: The
Lancet, _The British Medical Journal, Public Health, Municipal
Engineering, Hospital_, New York Medical Journal, etc., etc.
I have to thank the Society for the Prevention of Venereal Disease, the
National Birth-Rate Commission, and the Joint Select Committee
(House of Lords) on Criminal Law Amendment Bills for recording
various statements and evidence.
It remains only to state this fact: That on January 25th, 1922, Sir
Arbuthnot Lane, Sir Frederick Mott, Surgeon-Commander Hamilton
Boyden, of the Royal Navy, and Mr. Harman Freese, of Freese &
Moon, manufacturing chemists, of 59, Bermondsey Street, London,
S.E.1, met at my home to decide upon the best medical formulæ for
self-disinfecting ointment for men and
contraceptive-disinfecting-suppositories for women. Mr. Freese made
up sanitary tubes and sanitary suppositories in accordance with these
formulæ, but he is prohibited by law from recommending these for the
prevention of venereal disease, and forbidden to supply printed
directions with them, whereas similar medicaments are being retailed
with printed directions in the State of Pennsylvania, and the Health
Department circularises medical practitioners thus:--
"The self-treatment packet, obtainable at drug stores, to arrest venereal
infection after exposure, is approved by the State Department of Health
on the same principle as is antitoxin given to diphtheria contacts. Proof
is lacking that the use of this packet lowers social standards. Reduction
in the incidence of venereal disease is a direct result."
But not only in the clear, cool air of American State Departments of
Health is the knowledge and love of sexual cleanliness fructifying. In
the Dublin Review for January-March, 1922, there is a wonderfully fine
article on "The Church and Prostitution," by the Right Rev. Monsignor
Provost W.F. Brown, D.D., V.G., in which he quotes from a very

recent Moral Theology, "De Castitate," by the Rev. A. Vermeersch, S.J.,
Professor of Moral Theology at the Gregorian University, Rome,
published in May, 1921. The author of "De Castitate" gives brief
answers to three questions put to him, which Mgr. Brown quotes in the
original Latin, and of which the following is a translation furnished by
a Catholic priest:--
"You ask
1. Whether or not it is formally sinful to use antiseptic ointment before
illicit intercourse.
2. Whether or not the use of such ointment may be advocated.
3. Whether or not it is lawful for chemists to sell it.
Ad. 1. Although it seems that in England (cf. Times, January, 1917)
some have made a scrupulous distinction between the use of this
ointment before and after, and have forbidden the former while
approving the latter, you need make no such distinction (of course,
supposing the ointment is not used by a woman to sterilize). It is not
wrong to seek means, indifferent in themselves, which will prevent the
evil consequences of sin.
Ad. 2. It would indeed be a sin to reveal such drugs or to persuade their
use with the intention to induce a man to commit sin; but there is no
harm in telling a man who is certainly going to sin how to avoid the
consequences. Ad. 3. If men could be restrained from vice by
prohibiting the sales, this should be done; but so many are ready to
expose themselves to danger that you cannot hope for such a result
from forbidding the sale. It is true this removes fear, but the general
good, and the removal of danger to the innocent justifies this. Besides,
it is a poor virtue which is kept from sin only by the fear of disease."
Having gone so far as to admit the desirability and necessity of the
medical prevention of sexual diseases, the Roman Catholic Church will
certainly find itself later unable to deny the desirability and necessity of
preventing the birth of children liable to be born diseased or unfit. It is

not practicable for a wife to take any suitable precautions against
infection by a diseased husband, which precautions will not at the same
time be effective, to a greater or lesser extent, in the prevention of
conception. There is no half-way house in the matter of sexual hygiene.
ETTIE A. ROUT.

I.--INTRODUCTION.
At present marriage is easily the most dangerous of all our social
institutions. This is partly due to the colossal ignorance of the public in
regard to sex, and partly due to the fact that marriage is mainly
controlled by lawyers and priests instead of by women and doctors. The
legal and religious aspects of marriage are not