Safe Marriage | Page 5

applied. Thus, there will tend to be
less disease among this class than among the mentally torpid and
ill-informed masses of the community. This in itself will not improve
the race, but it will prevent the deterioration of certain classes and
increase their numbers. Nevertheless, so long as the irresponsible and
feeble-minded and diseased are permitted to multiply indiscriminately,
as at present, they must ultimately outnumber and overwhelm the

classes which are practising self-restraint or applying birth-control.
This process may even be hastened by a political enfranchisement,
which enables twelve feeble-minded persons to outvote two wise men
six times over. Thus, to succeed democracy must raise and maintain the
general average of brains and character throughout the community. In
so far as it permits low-grade individuals to be born in the homes of the
masses, and high-grade individuals in the homes of the classes, it is
manufacturing a rod to thrash its own back, successful rebellion against
which mode of Government ends in mere anarchy and chaos.[D]
[Footnote D: The present need of the white race is to increase its
numbers of fit and decrease its numbers of unfit. Over-population
(except in a few patches of the Old World) is not likely to be a problem
for the white race for centuries. They have several continents
practically empty and undeveloped, and science has as yet touched only
the fringe of the possible productivity of the earth in the matter of food
supplies. The worst feature of the British Empire is that there are too
many Englishmen and not enough Anzacs.--E.A.R.]
One duty at any rate is quite clear. No woman should run any chance of
conception unless she is certain of her own health and the health of her
partner--the man who is to be the father of the child she is to bring into
the world. If her husband's health is unsound, and she cannot avoid
intercourse, she can certainly take precautions against conception and
against infection. The control of fecundity and the control of infection
are parallel problems, and generally speaking, the measures a woman
takes to prevent conception will also prevent infection. If these
precautions are not taken, a woman may not only become seriously ill
herself, but she may blast the health of her unborn babe--or infect it
herself during or after birth. Clearly then it is her personal, as well as
her maternal and national, duty to apply preventive measures.
Women should understand that there is always a great deal of venereal
disease--millions of fresh cases every year in the British Empire.
During the war there were about half-a-million fresh infections per
annum among the soldiers in the British armies alone--about two
million men infected altogether at the very least.[E] Some were cured,

others patched up; some very badly treated; some not treated at all;
many demobilised while in an infective condition, and thus liable to
come home and sow in the bodies of clean women the seeds of diseases
picked up in foreign lands in moments of excitement and folly. Blame
these men if we must, but in all fairness let us ask ourselves: Who
infected them? And the answer is: _Diseased women._
[Footnote E: The devastation of these diseases among the British
armies abroad (in the Rhine, Black Sea, and Palestine areas, etc.) has
been much worse since the Armistice than during the war.
Approximately one-fourth (sometimes one-half) of these armies
become infected with venereal disease every year. From 1919 to 1921
somewhat soothing statistics were issued for the army of the Rhine, but
these have now been admitted in Parliament to be "quite unreliable"
(Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, November 3rd, 1921, p.
1952). It must be remembered that, owing to the exchange value of the
£, the English soldier on the Rhine is now being paid about £8 or £10
per day; that is, he draws a far higher salary than the highest paid
German official; hence there is no riotous pleasure, however expensive
and extravagant, which he cannot afford. These conditions do not
promote manly virtue or even sexual cleanliness.--E.A.R]
The venereal diseases are passed on from one sex to the other in a
continuous chain, but the chain can be broken at any time by either sex.
And now it is the married women on whom we must rely to see that
these infections are stopped. Leaving women to the chance protection
of their partners is demonstrably a failure. Here is an extract from a
letter sent me recently by an old and experienced medical
practitioner:--
"I have had many women under treatment _who have been continually
re-infected by their husbands_."
Men and women must both seek knowledge and both accept
responsibility for the venereal problem. They must face this problem
independently and in co-operation, and above all--face it honestly.
There