remarked, often knows less of the facts of the sexual life than a
milkmaid. It shows itself differently, however, in the two sexes.

Among women sexual ignorance ranges from complete innocence of the fact
that it involves any intimate bodily relationship at all to
misapprehensions of the most various kind; some think that the
relationship consists in lying side by side, many that intercourse takes
place at the navel, not a few that the act occupies the whole night. It
has been necessary in a previous chapter to discuss the general evils of
sexual ignorance; it is here necessary to refer to its more special evils
as regards the relationship of marriage. Girls are educated with the vague
idea that they will marry,--quite correctly, for the majority of them do
marry,--but the idea that they must be educated for the career that will
naturally fall to their lot is an idea which as yet has never seemed to
occur to the teachers of girls. Their heads are crammed to stupidity with
the knowledge of facts which it is no one's concern to know, but the
supremely important training for life they are totally unable to teach.
Women are trained for nearly every avocation under the sun; for the
supreme avocation of wifehood and motherhood they are never trained at
all!

It may be said, and with truth, that the present incompetent training of
girls is likely to continue so long as the mothers of girls are content to
demand nothing better. It may also be said, with even greater truth, that
there is much that concerns the knowledge of sexual relationships which
the mother herself may most properly impart to her daughter. It may
further be asserted, most unanswerably, that the art of love, with which
we are here more especially concerned, can only be learnt by actual
experience, an experience which our social traditions make it difficult
for a virtuous girl to acquire with credit. Without here attempting to
apportion the share of blame which falls to each cause, it remains
unfortunate that a woman should so often enter marriage with the worst
possible equipment of prejudices and misapprehensions, even when she
believes, as often happens, that she knows all about it. Even with the
best equipment, a woman, under present conditions, enters marriage at a
disadvantage. She awakes to the full realization of love more slowly than
a man, and, on the average, at a later age, so that her experiences of the
life of sex before marriage have usually been of a much more restricted
kind than her husband's.[382] So that even with the best preparation, it
often happens that it is not until several years after marriage that a
woman clearly realizes her own sexual needs and adequately estimates her
husband's ability to satisfy those needs. We cannot over-estimate the
personal and social importance of a complete preparation for marriage, and
the greater the difficulties placed in the way of divorce the more weight
necessarily attaches to that preparation.[383]

Everyone is probably acquainted with many cases of the extreme
ignorance of women on entering marriage. The following case
concerning a woman of twenty-seven, who had been asked in
marriage, is somewhat extreme, but not very exceptional. "She did
not feel sure of her affection and she asked a woman cousin
concerning the meaning of love. This cousin lent her Ellis
Ethelmer's pamphlet, _The Human Flower_. She learnt from this
that men desired the body of a woman, and this so appalled her
that she was quite ill for several days. The next time her lover
attempted a caress she told him that it was 'lust.' Since then
she has read George Moore's _Sister Teresa_, and the knowledge
that 'women can be as bad as men' has made her sad." The
"Histories" contained in the Appendices to previous volumes of
these _Studies_ reveal numerous instances of the deplorable
ignorance of young girls concerning the most central facts of the
sexual life. It is not surprising, under such circumstances, that
marriage leads to disillusionment or repulsion.

It is commonly said that the duty of initiating the wife into the
privileges and obligations of marriage properly belongs to the
husband. Apart, however, altogether from the fact that it is
unjust to a woman to compel her to bind herself in marriage
before she has fully realized what marriage means, it must also
be said that there are many things necessary for women to know
that it is unreasonable to expect a husband to explain. This is,
for instance, notably the case as regards the more fatiguing and
exhausting effects of coitus on a man as compared with a woman.
The inexperienced bride cannot know beforehand that the
frequently repeated orgasms which render her vigorous and radiant
exert a depressing effect on her husband, and his masculine pride
induces him to attempt to conceal that fact. The bride, in her
innocence, is unconscious that her pleasure is bought at her
husband's expense, and that what is not excess to her, may be a
serious excess to him. The woman who knows (notably, for
instance, a widow who remarries) is careful to guard her
husband's health in this respect, by restraining her own ardor,
for she realizes that a man is not willing to admit that he is
incapable of satisfying his wife's desires. (G. Hirth has also
pointed out how important it is that women should know before
marriage the natural limits of masculine potency, _Wege zur
Liebe_, p. 571.)

The ignorance of women of all that concerns the art of love, and their
total lack of preparation for the natural facts of the sexual life, would
perhaps be of less evil augury for marriage if it were always compensated
by the knowledge, skill, and considerateness of the husband. But that is
by no means always the case. Within the ordinary range we find, at all
events in England, the large group of men whose knowledge of women before
marriage has been mainly confined to prostitutes, and the important and
not inconsiderable group of men who have had no intimate intercourse with
women, their sexual experiences having been confined to masturbation or
other auto-erotic manifestations, and to flirtation. Certainly the man of
sensitive and intelligent temperament, whatever his training or lack of
training, may succeed with patience and consideration in overcoming all
the difficulties placed in the way of love by the mixture of ignorances
and prejudices which so often in woman takes the place of an education for
the erotic part of her life. But it cannot be said that either of these
two groups of men has been well equipped for the task. The training and
experience which a man receives from a prostitute, even under fairly
favorable conditions, scarcely form the right preparation for approaching
a woman of his own class who has no intimate erotic experiences.[384] The
frequent result is that he is liable to waver between two opposite courses
of action, both of them mistaken. On the one hand, he may treat his bride
as a prostitute, or as a novice to be speedily moulded into the sexual
shape he is most accustomed to, thus running the risk either of perverting
or of disgusting her. On the other hand, realizing that the purity and
dignity of his bride place her in an altogether different class from the
women he has previously known, he may go to the opposite extreme of
treating her with an exaggerated respect, and so fail either to arouse or
to gratify her erotic needs. It is difficult to say which of these two
courses of action is the more unfortunate; the result of both, however, is
frequently found to be that a nominal marriage never becomes a real
marriage.[385]

Yet there can be no doubt whatever that the other group of men, the men
who enter marriage without any erotic experiences, run even greater risks.
These are often the best of men, both as regards personal character and
mental power. It is indeed astonishing to find how ignorant, both
practically and theoretically, very able and highly educated men may be
concerning sexual matters.

"Complete abstinence during youth," says Freud (_Sexual-Probleme_,
March, 1908), "is not the best preparation for marriage in
a young man. Women divine this and prefer those of their
wooers who have already proved themselves to be men with
other women." Ellen Key, referring to the demand sometimes made
by women for purity in men (_Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, p. 96), asks
whether women realize the effect of their admiration of the
experienced and confident man who knows women, on the shy and
hesitating youth, "who perhaps has been struggling hard for his
erotic purity, in the hope that a woman's happy smile will be the
reward of his conquest, and who is condemned to see how that
woman looks down on him with lofty compassion and gazes with
admiration at the leopard's spots." When the lover, in Laura
Marholm's _Was war es_? says to the heroine, "I have never yet
touched a woman," the girl "turns from him with horror, and it
seemed to her that a cold shudder went through her, a chilling
deception." The same feeling is manifested in an exaggerated form
in the passion often experienced by vigorous girls of eighteen to
twenty-four for old roues. (This has been discussed by Forel,
_Die Sexuelle Frage_, pp. 217 et seq.)

Other factors may enter in a woman's preference for the man who
has conquered other women. Even the most religious and moral
young woman, Valera remarks (_Dona Luz_, p. 205), likes to marry
a man who has loved many women; it gives a greater value to his
choice of her; it also offers her an opportunity of converting
him to higher ideals. No doubt when the inexperienced man meets
in marriage the equally inexperienced woman they often succeed in
adapting themselves to each other and a permanent _modus vivendi_
is constituted. But it is by no means so always. If the wife is
taught by instinct or experience she is apt to resent the
awkwardness and helplessness of her husband in the art of love.
Even if she is ignorant she may be permanently alienated and
become chronically frigid, through the brutal inconsiderateness
of her ignorant husband in carrying out what he conceives to be
his marital duties. (It has already been necessary to touch on
this point in discussing "The Sexual Impulse in Women" in vol.
iii of these _Studies_.) Sometimes, indeed, serious physical
injury has been inflicted on the bride owing to this ignorance of
the husband.

"I take it that most men have had pre-matrimonial
sex-relationships," a correspondent writes. "But I have known one
man at least who, up till the age of twenty, had not even a
rudimentary idea of sex matters. At twenty-nine, a few months
before marriage, he came to ask me how coitus was performed, and
displayed an ignorance that I could not believe to exist in the
mind of an otherwise intelligent man. He had evidently no
instinct to guide him, as the brutes have, and his reason was
unable to supply the necessary knowledge. It is very curious that
man should lose this instinctive knowledge. I have known another
man almost equally ignorant. He also came to me for advice in
marital duties. Both of these men masturbated, and they were
normally passionate." Such cases are not so very rare. Usually,
however, a certain amount of information has been acquired from
some for the most part unsatisfactory source, and the ignorance
is only partial, though not on that account less dangerous.

Balzac has compared the average husband to an orang-utan trying
to play the violin. "Love, as we instinctively feel, is the most
melodious of harmonies. Woman is a delicious instrument of
pleasure, but it is necessary to know its quivering strings,
study the pose of it, its timid keyboard, the changing and
capricious fingering. How many orangs--men, I mean, marry without
knowing what a woman is!... Nearly all men marry in the most
profound ignorance of women and of love" (Balzac, _Physiologie du
Mariage_, Meditation VII).

Neugebauer (_Monatsschrift fuer Geburtshuelfe_, 1889, Bk. ix, pp.
221 et seq.) has collected over one hundred and fifty cases of
injury to women in coitus inflicted by the penis. The causes were
brutality, drunkenness of one or both parties, unusual position
in coitus, disproportion of the organs, pathological conditions
of the woman's organs (Cf. R.W. Taylor, _Practical Treatise on
Sexual Disorders_, Ch. XXXV). Blumreich also discusses the
injuries produced by violent coitus (Senator and Kaminer, _Health
and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. ii, pp. 770-779). C.M.
Green (_Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, 13 Ap., 1893)
records two cases of rupture of vagina by sexual intercourse in
newly-married ladies, without evidence of any great violence.
Mylott (_British Medical Journal_, Sept. 16, 1899) records a
similar case occurring on the wedding night. The amount of force
sometimes exerted in coitus is evidenced by the cases, occurring
from time to time, in which intercourse takes place by the
urethra.

Eulenburg finds (_Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 69) that vaginismus, a
condition of spasmodic contraction of the vulva and exaggerated
sensibility on the attempt to effect coitus, is due to forcible
and unskilful attempts at the first coitus. Adler (_Die
Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, p. 160) also
believes that the scarred remains of the hymen, together with
painful memories of a violent first coitus, are the most frequent
cause of vaginismus.

The occasional cases, however, of physical injury or of
pathological condition produced by violent coitus at the
beginning of marriage constitute but a very small portion of the
evidence which witnesses to the evil results of the prevalent
ignorance regarding the art of love. As regards Germany,
Fuerbringer writes (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in
Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 215): "I am perfectly satisfied
that the number of young married women who have a lasting painful
recollection of their first sexual intercourse exceeds by far the
number of those who venture to consult a doctor." As regards
England, the following experience is instructive: A lady asked
six married women in succession, privately, on the same day
concerning their bridal experiences. To all, sexual intercourse
had come as a shock; two had been absolutely ignorant about
sexual matters; the others had thought they knew what coitus was,
but were none the less shocked. These women were of the middle
class, perhaps above the average in intelligence; one was a
doctor.

Breuer and Freud, in their _Studien ueber Hysterie_ (p. 216),
pointed out that the bridal night is practically often a rape,
and that it sometimes leads to hysteria, which is not cured until
satisfying sexual relationships are established. Even when there
is no violence, Kisch (_Sexual Life of Woman_, Part II) regards
awkward and inexperienced coitus, leading to incomplete
excitement of the wife, as the chief cause of dyspareunia, or
absence of sexual gratification, although gross disproportion in
the size of the male and female organs, or disease in either
party, may lead to the same result. Dyspareunia, Kisch adds, is
astonishingly frequent, though sometimes women complain of it
without justification in order to arouse sympathy for themselves
as sacrifices on the altar of marriage; the constant sign is
absence of ejaculation on the woman's part. Kisch also observes
that wedding night deflorations are often really rapes. One young
bride, known to him, was so ignorant of the physical side of
love, and so overwhelmed by her husband's first attempt at
intercourse, that she fled from the house in the night, and
nothing would ever persuade her to return to her husband. (It is
worth noting that by Canon law, under such circumstances, the
Church might hold the marriage invalid. See Thomas Slater's
_Moral Theology_, vol. ii, p. 318, and a case in point, both
quoted by Rev. C.J. Shebbeare, "Marriage Law in the Church of
England," _Nineteenth Century_, Aug., 1909, p. 263.) Kisch
considers, also, that wedding tours are a mistake; since the
fatigue, the excitement, the long journeys, sight-seeing, false
modesty, bad hotel arrangements, often combine to affect the
bride unfavorably and produce the germs of serious illness. This
is undoubtedly the case.

The extreme psychic importance of the manner in which the act of
defloration is accomplished is strongly emphasized by Adler. He
regards it as a frequent cause of permanent sexual anaesthesia.
"This first moment in which the man's individuality attains its
full rights often decides the whole of life. The unskilled,
over-excited husband can then implant the seed of feminine
insensibility, and by continued awkwardness and coarseness
develop it into permanent anaesthesia. The man who takes
possession of his rights with reckless brutal masculine force
merely causes his wife anxiety and pain, and with every
repetition of the act increases her repulsion.... A large
proportion of cold-natured women represent a sacrifice by men,
due either to unconscious awkwardness, or, occasionally, to
conscious brutality towards the tender plant which should have
been cherished with peculiar art and love, but has been robbed of
the splendor of its development. All her life long, a wistful and
trembling woman will preserve the recollection of a brutal
wedding night, and, often enough, it remains a perpetual source
of inhibition every time that the husband seeks anew to gratify
his desires without adapting himself to his wife's desires for
love" (O. Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des
Weibes_, pp. 159 et seq., 181 et seq.). "I have seen an honest
woman shudder with horror at her husband's approach," wrote
Diderot long ago in his essay "Sur les Femmes"; "I have seen her
plunge in the bath and feel herself never sufficiently washed
from the stain of duty." The same may still be said of a vast
army of women, victims of a pernicious system of morality which
has taught them false ideas of "conjugal duty" and has failed to
teach their husbands the art of love.

Women, when their fine natural instincts have not been hopelessly
perverted by the pruderies and prejudices which are so diligently
instilled into them, understand the art of love more readily than men.
Even when little more than children they can often completely take the cue
that is given to them. Much more than is the case with men, at all events
under civilized conditions, the art of love is with them an art that
Nature makes. They always know more of love, as Montaigne long since said,
than men can teach them, for it is a discipline that is born in their
blood.[386]

The extensive inquiries of Sanford Bell (loc. cit.) show that the
emotions of sex-love may appear as early as the third year. It
must also be remembered that, both physically and psychically,
girls are more precocious, more mature, than boys (see, e.g.,
Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, pp. 34 _et
seq._, 200, etc.). Thus, by the time she has reached the age of
puberty a girl has had time to become an accomplished mistress of
the minor arts of love. That the age of puberty is for girls the
age of love seems to be widely recognized by the popular mind.
Thus in a popular song of Bresse a girl  sings:--

"J'ai calcule mon age,
J'ai quatorze a quinze ans.
Ne suis-je pas dans l'age
D'y avoir un amant?"

This matter of the sexual precocity of girls has an important
bearing on the question of the "age of consent," or the age at
which it should be legal for a girl to consent to sexual
intercourse. Until within the last twenty-five years there has
been a tendency to set a very low age (even as low as ten) as the
age above which a man commits no offence in having sexual
intercourse with a girl. In recent years there has been a
tendency to run to the opposite and equally unfortunate extreme
of raising it to a very late age. In England, by the Criminal Law
Amendment Act of 1885, the age of consent was raised to sixteen
(this clause of the bill being carried in the House of Commons by
a majority of 108). This seems to be the reasonable age at which
the limit should be set and its extreme high limit in temperate
climates. It is the age recognized by the Italian Criminal Code,
and in many other parts of the civilized world. Gladstone,
however, was in favor of raising it to eighteen, and Howard, in
discussing this question as regards the United States
(_Matrimonial Institutions_, vol. iii, pp. 195-203), thinks it
ought everywhere to be raised to twenty-one, so coinciding with
the age of legal majority at which a woman can enter into
business or political relations. There has been, during recent
years, a wide limit of variation in the legislation of the
different American States on this point, the differences of the
two limits being as much as eight years, and in some important
States the act of intercourse with a girl under eighteen is
declared to be "rape," and punishable with imprisonment for life.

Such enactments as these, however, it must be recognized, are
arbitrary, artificial, and unnatural. They do not rest on a sound
biological basis, and cannot be enforced by the common sense of
the community. There is no proper analogy between the age of
legal majority which is fixed, approximately, with reference to
the ability to comprehend abstract matters of intelligence, and
the age of sexual maturity which occurs much earlier, both
physically and psychically, and is determined in women by a very
precise biological event: the completion of puberty in the onset
of menstruation. Among peoples living under natural conditions in
all parts of the world it is recognized that a girl becomes
sexually a woman at puberty; at that epoch she receives her
initiation into adult life and becomes a wife and a mother. To
declare that the act of intercourse with a woman who, by the
natural instinct of mankind generally, is regarded as old enough
for all the duties of womanhood, is a criminal act of rape,
punishable by imprisonment for life, can only be considered an
abuse of language, and, what is worse, an abuse of law, even if
we leave all psychological and moral considerations out of the
question, for it deprives the conception of rape of all that
renders it naturally and properly revolting.

The sound view in this question is clearly the view that it is
the girl's puberty which constitutes the criterion of the man's
criminality in sexually approaching her. In the temperate regions
of Europe and North America the average age of the appearance of
menstruation, the critical moment in the establishment of
complete puberty, is fifteen (see, e.g., Havelock Ellis, _Man and
Woman_, Ch. XI; the facts are set forth at length in Kisch's
_Sexual Life of Woman_, 1909). Therefore it is reasonable that
the act of an adult man in having sexual connection with a girl
under sixteen, with or without her consent, should properly be a
criminal act, severely punishable. In those lands where the
average age of puberty is higher or lower, the age of consent
should be raised or lowered accordingly. (Bruno Meyer, arguing
against any attempt to raise the age of consent above sixteen,
considers that the proper age of consent is generally fourteen,
for, as he rightly insists, the line of division is between the
ripe and the unripe personality, and while the latter should be
strictly preserved from the sphere of sexuality, only voluntary,
not compulsory, influence should be brought to bear on the
former. _Sexual-Probleme_, Ap., 1909.)

If we take into our view the wider considerations of psychology,
morality, and law, we shall find ample justification for this
point of view. We have to remember that a girl, during all the
years of ordinary school life, is always more advanced, both
physically and psychically, than a boy of the same age, and we
have to recognize that this precocity covers her sexual
development; for even though it is true, on the average, that
active sexual desire is not usually aroused in women until a
somewhat later age, there is also truth in the observation of Mr.
Thomas Hardy (_New Review_, June, 1894): "It has never struck me
that the spider is invariably male and the fly invariably
female." Even, therefore, when sexual intercourse takes place
between a girl and a youth somewhat older than herself, she is
likely to be the more mature, the more self-possessed, and the
more responsible of the two, and often the one who has taken the
more active part in initiating the act. (This point has been
discussed in "The Sexual Impulse in Women" in vol. iii of these
_Studies_.) It must also be remembered that when a girl has once
reached the age of puberty, and put on all the manner and habits
as well as the physical development of a woman, it is no longer
possible for a man always to estimate her age. It is easy to see
that a girl has not yet reached the age of puberty; it is
impossible to tell whether a mature woman is under or over
eighteen; it is therefore, to say the least, unjust to make her
male partner's fate for life depend on the recognition of a
distinction which has no basis in nature. Such considerations
are, indeed, so obvious that there is no chance of carrying out
thoroughly in practice the doctrine that a man should be
imprisoned for life for having intercourse with a girl who is
over the age of sixteen. It is better, from the legal point of
view, to cast the net less widely and to be quite sure that it is
adapted to catch the real and conscious offender, who may be
punished without offending the common sense of the community.
(Cf. Bloch, _The Sexual Life of Our Time_, Ch. XXIV; he considers
that the "age of consent" should begin with the completion of the
sixteenth year.)

It may be necessary to add that the establishment of the "age of
consent" on this basis by no means implies that intercourse with
girls but little over sixteen should be encouraged, or even
socially and morally tolerated. Here, however, we are not in the
sphere of law. It is the natural tendency of the well-born and
well-nurtured girl under civilized conditions to hold herself in
reserve, and the pressure whereby that tendency is maintained and
furthered must be supplied by the whole of her environment,
primarily by the intelligent reflection of the girl herself when
she has reached the age of adolescence. To foster in a young
woman who has long passed the epoch of puberty the notion that
she has no responsibility in the guardianship of her own body and
soul is out of harmony with modern feeling, as well as
unfavorable to the training of women for the world. The States
which have been induced to adopt the high limit of the age of
consent have, indeed, thereby made an abject confession of their
inability to maintain a decent moral level by more legitimate
means; they may profitably serve as a warning rather than as an
example.

The knowledge of women cannot, however, replace, the ignorance of men,
but, on the contrary, merely serves to reveal it. For in the art of love
the man must necessarily take the initiative. It is he who must first
unseal the mystery of the intimacies and audacities which the woman's
heart may hold. The risk of meeting with even the shadow of contempt or
disgust is too serious to allow a woman, even a wife, to reveal the
secrets of love to a man who has not shown himself to be an
initiate.[387] Numberless are the jovial and contented husbands who have
never suspected, and will never know, that their wives carry about with
them, sometimes with silent resentment, the ache of mysterious _tabus_.
The feeling that there are delicious privacies and privileges which she
has never been asked to take, or forced to accept, often erotically
divorces a wife from a husband who never realizes what he has missed.[388]
The case of such husbands is all the harder because, for the most part,
all that they have done is the result of the morality that has been
preached to them. They have been taught from boyhood to be strenuous and
manly and clean-minded, to seek by all means to put out of their minds the
thought of women or the longing for sensuous indulgence. They have been
told on all sides that only in marriage is it right or even safe to
approach women. They have acquired the notion that sexual indulgence and
all that appertains to it is something low and degrading, at the worst a
mere natural necessity, at the best a duty to be accomplished in a direct,
honorable and straight-forward manner. No one seems to have told them that
love is an art, and that to gain real possession of a woman's soul and
body is a task that requires the whole of a man's best skill and insight.
It may well be that when a man learns his lesson too late he is inclined
to turn ferociously on the society that by its conspiracy of
pseudo-morality has done its best to ruin his life, and that of his wife.
In some of these cases husband or wife or both are finally attracted to a
third person, and a divorce enables them to start afresh with better
experience under happier auspices. But as things are at present that is a
sad and serious process, for many impossible. They are happier, as Milton
pointed out, whose trials of love before marriage "have been so many
divorces to teach them experience."

The general ignorance concerning the art of love may be gauged by the fact
that perhaps the question in this matter most frequently asked is the
crude question how often sexual intercourse should take place. That is a
question, indeed, which has occupied the founders of religion, the
law-givers, and the philosophers of mankind, from the earliest times.[389]
Zoroaster said it should be once in every nine days. The laws of Manes
allowed intercourse during fourteen days of the month, but a famous
ancient Hindu physician, Susruta, prescribed it six times a month, except
during the heat of summer when it should be once a month, while other
Hindu authorities say three or four times a month. Solon's requirement of
the citizen that intercourse should take place three times a month fairly
agrees with Zoroaster's. Mohammed, in the Koran, decrees intercourse once
a week. The Jewish Talmud is more discriminating, and distinguishes
between different classes of people; on the vigorous and healthy young
man, not compelled to work hard, once a day is imposed, on the ordinary
working man twice a week, on learned men once a week. Luther considered
twice a week the proper frequency of intercourse.

It will be observed that, as we might expect, these estimates tend to
allow a greater interval in the earlier ages when erotic stimulation was
probably less and erotic erethism probably rare, and to involve an
increased frequency as we approach modern civilization. It will also be
observed that variation occurs within fairly narrow limits. This is
probably due to the fact that these law-givers were in all cases men.
Women law-givers would certainly have shown a much greater tendency to
variation, since the variations of the sexual impulse are greater in
women.[390] Thus Zenobia required the approach of her husband once a
month, provided that impregnation had not taken place the previous month,
while another queen went very far to the other extreme, for we are told
that the Queen of Aragon, after mature deliberation, ordained six times a
day as the proper rule in a legitimate marriage.[391]

It may be remarked, in passing, that the estimates of the proper
frequency of sexual intercourse may always be taken to assume
that there is a cessation during the menstrual period. This is
especially the case as regards early periods of culture when
intercourse at this time is usually regarded as either dangerous
or sinful, or both. (This point has been discussed in the
"Phenomena of Periodicity" in volume i of these _Studies_.) Under
civilized conditions the inhibition is due to aesthetic reasons,
the wife, even if she desires intercourse, feeling a repugnance
to be approached at a time when she regards herself as
"disgusting," and the husband easily sharing this attitude. It
may, however, be pointed out that the aesthetic objection is very
largely the result of the superstitious horror of water which is
still widely felt at this time, and would, to some extent,
disappear if a more scrupulous cleanliness were observed. It
remains a good general rule to abstain from sexual intercourse
during the menstrual period, but in some cases there may be
adequate reason for breaking it. This is so when desire is
specially strong at this time, or when intercourse is physically
difficult at other times but easier during the relaxation of the
parts caused by menstruation. It must be remembered also that the
time when the menstrual flow is beginning to cease is probably,
more than any other period of the month, the biologically proper
time for sexual intercourse, since not only is intercourse
easiest then, and also most gratifying to the female, but it
affords the most favorable opportunity for securing
fertilization.

Schurig long since brought together evidence (_Parthenologia_,
pp. 302 et seq.) showing that coitus is most easy during
menstruation. Some of the Catholic theologians (like Sanchez, and
later, Liguori), going against the popular opinion, have
distinctly permitted intercourse during menstruation, though many
earlier theologians regarded it as a mortal sin. From the
medical side, Kossmann (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease
in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 249) advocates coitus not
only at the end of menstruation, but even during the latter part
of the period, as being the time when women most usually need it,
the marked disagreeableness of temper often shown by women at
this time, he says, being connected with the suppression,
demanded by custom, of a natural desire. "It is almost always
during menstruation that the first clouds appear on the
matrimonial horizon."

In modern times the physiologists and physicians who have expressed any
opinion on this subject have usually come very near to Luther's dictum.
Haller said that intercourse should not be much more frequent than twice a
week.[392] Acton said once a week, and so also Hammond, even for healthy
men between the ages of twenty-five and forty.[393] Fuerbringer only
slightly exceeds this estimate by advocating from fifty to one hundred
single acts in the year.[394] Forel advises two or three times a week for
a man in the prime of manhood, but he adds that for some healthy and
vigorous men once a month appears to be excess.[395] Mantegazza, in his
_Hygiene of Love_, also states that, for a man between twenty and thirty,
two or three times a week represents the proper amount of intercourse, and
between the ages of thirty and forty-five, twice a week. Guyot recommends
every three days.[396]

It seems, however, quite unnecessary to lay down any general rules
regarding the frequency of coitus. Individual desire and individual
aptitude, even within the limits of health, vary enormously. Moreover, if
we recognize that the restraint of desire is sometimes desirable, and
often necessary for prolonged periods, it is as well to refrain from any
appearance of asserting the necessity of sexual intercourse at frequent
and regular intervals. The question is chiefly of importance in order to
guard against excess, or even against the attempt to live habitually close
to the threshold of excess. Many authorities are, therefore, careful to
point out that it is inadvisable to be too definite. Thus Erb, while
remarking that, for some, Luther's dictum represents the extreme maximum,
adds that others can go far beyond that amount with impunity, and he
considers that such variations are congenital.[397] Ribbing, again, while
expressing general agreement with Luther's rule, protests against any
attempt to lay down laws for everyone, and is inclined to say that as
often as one likes is a safe rule, so long as there are no bad
after-effects.[398]

It seems to be generally agreed that bad effects from excess in
coitus, when they do occur, are rare in women (see, e.g.,
Hammond, _Sexual Impotence_, p. 127). Occasionally, however, evil
effects occur in women. (The case, possibly to be mentioned in
this connection, has been recorded of a man whose three wives all
became insane after marriage, _Journal of Mental Science_, Jan.,
1879, p. 611.) In cases of sexual excess great physical
exhaustion, with suspicion and delusions, is often observed.
Hutchinson has recorded three cases of temporary blindness, all
in men, the result of sexual excess after marriage (_Archives of
Surgery_, Jan., 1893). The old medical authors attributed many
evil results to excess in coitus. Thus Schurig (_Spermatologia_,
1720, pp. 260 et seq.) brings together cases of insanity,
apoplexy, syncope, epilepsy, loss of memory, blindness, baldness,
unilateral perspiration, gout, and death attributed to this
cause; of death many cases are given, some in women, but one may
easily perceive that _post_ was often mistaken for _propter_.

There is, however, another consideration which can scarcely escape the
reader of the present work. Nearly all the estimates of the desirable
frequence of coitus are framed to suit the supposed physiological needs of
the husband,[399] and they appear usually to be framed in the same spirit
of exclusive attention to those needs as though the physiological needs of
the evacuation of the bowels or the bladder were in question. But sexual
needs are the needs of two persons, of the husband and of the wife. It is
not enough to ascertain the needs of the husband; it is also necessary to
ascertain the needs of the wife. The resultant must be a harmonious
adjustment of these two groups of needs. That consideration alone, in
conjunction with the wide variations of individual needs, suffices to
render any definite rules of very trifling value.

It is important to remember the wide limits of variation in
sexual capacity, as well as the fact that such variations in
either direction may be healthy and normal, though undoubtedly
when they become extreme variations may have a pathological
significance. In one case, for instance, a man has intercourse
once a month and finds this sufficient; he has no nocturnal
emissions nor any strong desires in the interval; yet he leads an
idle and luxurious life and is not restrained by any moral or
religious scruples; if he much exceeds the frequency which suits
him he suffers from ill-health, though otherwise quite healthy
except for a weak digestion. At the other extreme, a happily
married couple, between forty-five and fifty, much attached to
each other, had engaged in sexual intercourse every night for
twenty years, except during the menstrual period and advanced
pregnancy, which had only occurred once; they are hearty,
full-blooded, intellectual people, fond of good living, and they
attribute their affection and constancy to this frequent
indulgence in coitus; the only child, a girl, is not strong,
though fairly healthy.

The cases are numerous in which, on special occasions, it is
possible for people who are passionately attached to each other
to repeat the act of coitus, or at all events the orgasm, an
inordinate number of times within a few hours. This usually
occurs at the beginning of an intimacy or after a long
separation. Thus in one case a newly-married woman experienced
the orgasm fourteen times in one night, her husband in the same
period experiencing it seven times. In another case a woman who
had lived a chaste life, when sexual relationships finally began,
once experienced orgasm fourteen or fifteen times to her
partner's three times. In a case which, I have been assured may
be accepted as authentic, a young wife of highly erotic, very
erethic, slightly abnormal temperament, after a month's absence
from her husband, was excited twenty-six times within an hour and
a quarter; her husband, a much older man, having two orgasms
during this period; the wife admitted that she felt a "complete
wreck" after this, but it is evident that if this case may be
regarded as authentic the orgasms were of extremely slight
intensity. A young woman, newly married to a physically robust
man, once had intercourse with him eight times in two hours,
orgasm occurring each time in both parties. Guttceit (_Dreissig
Jahre Praxis_, vol. ii. p. 311), in Russia, knew many cases in
which young men of twenty-two to twenty-eight had intercourse
more than ten times in one night, though after the fourth time
there is seldom any semen. He had known some men who had
masturbated in early boyhood, and began to consort with women at
fifteen, yet remained sexually vigorous in old age, while he knew
others who began intercourse late and were losing force at forty.
Mantegazza, who knew a man who had intercourse fourteen times in
one day, remarks that the stories of the old Italian novelists
show that twelve times was regarded as a rare exception.
Burchard, Alexander VI's secretary, states that the Florentine
Ambassador's son, in Rome in 1489, "knew a girl seven times in
one hour" (J. Burchard, _Diarium_, ed. Thuasne, vol. i, p. 329).
Olivier, Charlemagne's knight, boasted, according to legend, that
he could show his virile power one hundred times in one night, if
allowed to sleep with the Emperor of Constantinople's daughter;
he was allowed to try, it is said, and succeeded thirty times
(Schultz, _Das Hoefische Leben_, vol. i, p. 581).

It will be seen that whenever the sexual act is repeated
frequently within a short time it is very rarely indeed that the
husband can keep pace with the wife. It is true that the woman's
sexual energy is aroused more slowly and with more difficulty
than the man's, but as it becomes aroused its momentum increases.
The man, whose energy is easily aroused, is easily exhausted; the
woman has often scarcely attained her energy until after the
first orgasm is over. It is sometimes a surprise to a young
husband, happily married, to find that the act of sexual
intercourse which completely satisfies him has only served to
arouse his wife's ardor. Very many women feel that the repetition
of the act several times in succession is needed to, as they may
express it, "clear the system," and, far from producing
sleepiness and fatigue, it renders them bright and lively.

The young and vigorous woman, who has lived a chaste life,
sometimes feels when she commences sexual relationships as though
she really required several husbands, and needed intercourse at
least once a day, though later when she becomes adjusted to
married life she reaches the conclusion that her desires are not
abnormally excessive. The husband has to adjust himself to his
wife's needs, through his sexual force when he possesses it, and,
if not, through his skill and consideration. The rare men who
possess a genital potency which they can exert to the
gratification of women without injury to themselves have been, by
Professor Benedikt, termed "sexual athletes," and he remarks that
such men easily dominate women. He rightly regards Casanova as
the type of the sexual athlete (_Archives d'Anthropologie
Criminelle_, Jan., 1896). Naecke reports the case of a man whom he
regards as a sexual athlete, who throughout his life had
intercourse once or twice daily with his wife, or if she was
unwilling, with another woman, until he became insane at the age
of seventy-five (_Zeitschrift fuer Sexualwissenschaft_, Aug.,
1908, p. 507). This should probably, however, be regarded rather
as a case of morbid hyperaesthesia than of sexual athleticism.

At this stage we reach the fundamental elements of the art of love. We
have seen that many moral practices and moral theories which have been
widely current in Christendom have developed traditions, still by no means
extinct among us, which were profoundly antagonistic to the art of love.
The idea grew up of "marital duties," of "conjugal rights."[400] The
husband had the right and the duty to perform sexual intercourse with his
wife, whatever her wishes in the matter might be, while the wife had the
duty and the right (the duty in her case being usually put first) to
submit to such intercourse, which she was frequently taught to regard as
something low and merely physical, an unpleasant and almost degrading
necessity which she would do well to put out of her thoughts as speedily
as possible. It is not surprising that such an attitude towards marriage
has been highly favorable to conjugal unhappiness, more especially that of
the wife,[401] and it has tended to promote adultery and divorce. We might
have been more surprised had it been otherwise.

The art of love is based on the fundamental natural fact of courtship; and
courtship is the effort of the male to make himself acceptable to the
female.[402] "The art of love," said Vatsyayana, one of the greatest of
authorities, "is the art of pleasing women." "A man must never permit
himself a pleasure with his wife," said Balzac in his _Physiologie du
Mariage_, "which he has not the skill first to make her desire." The whole
art of love is there. Women, naturally and instinctively, seek to make
themselves desirable to men, even to men whom they are supremely
indifferent to, and the woman who is in love with a man, by an equally
natural instinct, seeks to shape herself to the measure which individually
pleases him. This tendency is not really modified by the fundamental fact
that in these matters it is only the arts that Nature makes which are
truly effective. It is finally by what he is that a man arouses a woman's
deepest emotions of sympathy or of antipathy, and he is often pleasing her
more by displaying his fitness to play a great part in the world outside
than by any acquired accomplishments in the arts of courtship. When,
however, the serious and intimate play of physical love begins, the
woman's part is, even biologically, on the surface the more passive
part.[403] She is, on the physical side, inevitably the instrument in
love; it must be his hand and his bow which evoke the music.

In speaking of the art of love, however, it is impossible to disentangle