Woman | Page 7

life. She
runs the risk of venereal infection the same as the boy does, but in
addition she runs the risk of becoming pregnant, which in our present
social system is a catastrophe indeed. To save herself from the disgrace
of an illegitimate child she may have an abortion produced; the
abortion may have no bad results, but it may, if performed bunglingly,
leave her an invalid for life, or it may kill her outright. If she is so
unfortunate as to be unable to get anybody to produce an abortion, she
gives birth to an illegitimate child, which she is forced in most cases to
put away in an institution of some sort where she hopes and prays it
may die soon--and, in general, it does. If it does not die, she has for the
rest of her life a Damocles' sword hanging over her head, and she is in
constant terror lest her sin be found out. She does not permit herself to

look for a mate, but if she does get married, the specter of her
antematrimonial experience is constantly before her eyes. After years
and years of married life, the husband may divorce her if he finds out
that she had "sinned" before she knew him. And unless the husband is a
broad-minded man and loves her truly and unless she made a clean
breast of everything to him before marriage, her life is continuous
torture. But even if the girl escaped pregnancy, the mere finding out
that she had an illicit experience deprives her of social standing, or
makes her a social outcast and entirely destroys or greatly minimizes
her chances of ever marrying and establishing a home of her own. She
must remain a lonely wanderer to the end of her days.
The enormous difference in the results of a misstep in a boy and a girl
is clearly seen, and for this reason alone, if for no other, sex instruction
is of more importance to the girl than it is to the boy.
But there are other important reasons, and one of them is beautifully
and truthfully expressed by Byron in his two well-known lines.
Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence.
Yes, love is a woman's whole life.
Some modern women might object to this. They might say that this was
true of the woman of the past, who was excluded from all other
avenues of human activity. The woman of the present day has other
interests besides those of Love. But I claim that this is true of only a
small percentage of women; and in even this small minority of women,
social, scientific and artistic activities cannot take the place of love; no
matter how busy and successful these women may be, they will tell you
if you enjoy their confidence that they are unhappy, if their love life is
unsatisfactory. Nothing, nothing can fill the void made by the lack of
love. The various activities may help to cover up the void, to protect it
from strange eyes, they cannot fill it. For essentially woman is made for
love. Not exclusively, but essentially, and a woman who has had no
love in her life has been a failure. The few exceptions that may be
mentioned only emphasize the rule.

But not only psychically is a woman's love and sex life more important
than a man's, physically she is also much more cognizant of her sex and
much more hampered by the manifestation of her sex nature than man
is. To take but one function, menstruation. From the age 13 or 14 to the
age of forty-five or fifty it is a monthly reminder to woman that she is a
woman, that she is a creature of sex; and, while to many women this
periodically recurring function is only a source of some annoyance or
discomfort, to a great number it is a cause of pain, headache, suffering,
or complete disability. Man has no such phenomenon to annoy him
practically his whole life.
But more important are the results of love-union, of sex relations. A
man after a sexual relation is just as free as he was before. A woman, if
the relation has resulted in a pregnancy, which is generally the case,
unless special pains are taken it should not so result, has nine
troublesome months before her, months of discomfort if not of actual
suffering; she then has an extremely trying and painful ordeal, that of
childbirth, and then there is another trying period, the period of
lactation or of nursing and of bringing up the baby. The penalty seems
almost too great.
And when the woman is on the point of ceasing to menstruate she does
not do so smoothly and comfortably. She