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CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

 

GIFT OF
W. C. Andrae

 

 

 

 
CORMELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
SATAN IN SOCIETY.

By A PHYSICIAN.

“Tere are a few of the unpleasant’st words
Thut ever blotted paper! SHAKSPEARE,

CINCINNATI AND NEW YORK:
Cc. F. VENT.
CHICAGO: J. S. GOODMAN & CO.
1871.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870,
BY C. F. VENT,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington,
{o
Hon. Wirutam SpracuE,
EX-GOVERNOR OF, AND UNITED STATES SENATOR
FROM, RHODE ISLAND,
Ghis Book is Dedicated:
NOT TO THE STATESMAN, THE POLITICIAN,
NOR THE MILLIONAIRE;

-NOR EVEN TO THE FRIEND OF FORMER YEARS;
BUT
To THE MAN

WHO DARES PREFER TRUTH TO POPULARITY.
CONTENTS.

 

APOLOGIA.

Encouragement to the Author—Recent Authors on Female Onan-
ism—Human Pride leads to Destruction—True Progress only
attained through Christianity—Nothing New under the Sun—
Popular Authors on the Wedding Night—Patent Contrivances to
prevent Conception—Physicians can not approve Them—Two
Wrongs do not make One Right—Extract from “Physical Life of
Woman”—The Decree of Religion and Science—Of Boarding-
Schools—Citations—National Courtships contrasted—A Learned
Frenchman’s Views of us—Effects of the Habit of Coquetry—
Rudeness of American Public Manners—Weakness of Family
Ties and Fraternal Love—Fortifying Influences of Modesty—
Picture drawn by Rev. A. D. Mayo—Secret Cause of Fearful Col-
lapse of Female Health—Practical Infidelity a Predisposing
Cause—For whom we have written—A Plea for Fair Criticism—
Vicious Practices combated by Reason—Qualities Resulting from
Mixed Schools—Should these Topics be discussed ?—Abominable
Current Literature—“Stirpiculture” Openly Advocated—The Dis- ‘
cussion forced upon us—Our Hopes and Aims—Authors from
whom we have drawn—Why the Author wrote Anonymously—

Confessions—Let our Object plead for uS........600 .»PaGEs 16-49
5
6 CONTENTS.

 

I.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF BOYS AND YOUNG
MEN.

Evils and Dangers of the Present System of Education—Generation
of Infidels—Number and Character of Habitual Church-goers—
Promiscuous Public Schools—Dangerous Elements in Human
Nature—Stimulants to the Sexual Instinct—Onanists and
Roués—Parents and Guardians criminally responsible for this
Vice—Where many Boys receive their first Lessons in Crime—
Personal Experiences of the Author at a tender Age—Culpable
Custom—Bcys and Girls Sleeping in the same Room or Bed—
Concupiscence not the only Passion Developed—Remedy for
Falsehood—Novel, yet Efficient—Belligerent Patient—Distorted
Virtues—Boarding-Schools—History of “One of the Best’—Sins
of the Eye and Imagination—Popular Sophism—Home Piety,

and less interest in “Borioboola Gha,”.........0+ese0e-PAGES 61-64
: IT.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF GIRLS AND YOUNG
WOMEN.

Mission of Education in its largest Sense—Mens sana in corpore
sano—The Desideratum—Hereditary Vices in Constitution—Who
need a Physician—Means of Prevention—Remedy of Natural De-
fects—Sunshine and Air carefully excluded—Physical Improve-
ment of the Mothers Demanded—Maidenly Freshness and Inno-
cence becoming a Myth—FEarly Isolation of the Sexes—Love of
Dress in Girls—A New and Horrible Rivalry—Children’s Par-
ties—Boarding-Schools dangerous to the Physical and Moral
Natures—Influence of Music, Dancing, eto.—In the Abuse of
Good Things, Evil generally Consists—No intermediate Stage be-
tween Childhood and Adult Age—Privileges of acknowledged
CONTENTS. 7

 

Lovers—Pictorial [llustration—American Courtship—Warm ap-
peal to the Young Women of America—Wherein the danger
Lies—Details of a Sad Occurrence in Fashionable Life—Finale
of the European Tour—Matrimony the End and Aim of Ex-
istence —Latest Modern Invention—Woman’s Rights— Her
“Rights” will prove a most prolific Source of her wrongs—Men
not reformed, but Women Debased by the Ballot—Laxity and Neg-
ligence of Home Duties—Women’s Rights, Babies’ Wrongs—Case
Supposed—Spiritual Children of “Old Maids”........PaaEs 65-90

III.
MALE MASTURBATION.

The most Frequent, as well as most Fatal, of all Vices—Masturba-
tion in Children before the Age of Puberty—Method Adopted
by “ Wise Women”—Priapism in a Child of Four Years—Case
of Onanism Commenced at the Age of Ten—Terrible Case—
Combining all the Miseries and Baseness—Case of L. D. con-
tinued—Loathsome condition of Mind and Body—Physical
Symptoms and Condition of Masturbator—Moral Degradation
even Worse—Picture Drawn by a German Physician—Different
Degrees of Punishment—Dangers to reformed Onanists—Fear-
ful Prevalence of this Vice in Boarding-Schools—Sudden Dete-
Tioration of Youthful Prodigies.........cccsessseccscsesesL AGES 91-105

IV.
FEMALE MASTURBATION.

Number of Female Masturbators enormous—Young Ladies’ Schools the
Arena—Distinguished Frenchman's Caution—Origin of many of
the Diseases of Unmarried Women—History of a Young Heiress
of Ten or Twelve Years—An old Governess Satan’s Agent in the
Affair—Mental and Moral Symptoms—Onanism a solitary, also
CONTENTS.

 

Contagious Vice—Double Onanism—Husband and Wife alike
Guilty—Suspicious Circumstances Requiring Investigation—
Avoid not the Subject through False Delicacy....... Paazs 106-116

Vv.

THE SACRED RIGHTS OF OFFSPRING.

The Right of Children to be Born—Abortion a Monstrous Heresy—

Letter from an Influential Clergyman—Reply of the Author—
Child has Being and Soul from moment of Conception—As much
your Christian Duty to Murder your Living Child—Any Physi-
cian undertaking it,a Monster and Scoundrel—Dangers to the
Mother Incidental to Abortion—Result of the Correspondence—
Several Dlustrative Cases—Cases continued—Enormous Preva-
lence of Child-Murder—Thoughts which are not Pleasant—Un-
scrupulous and Careless Practitioners Largely Responsible—An
M. D. the Hero of Three Hundred Abortions—His Status in
Church and Fashionable Society—Science and Nature kindly
Assist each Other—Appeal to our Fair Country-Women—Decree
of the Church—Custom of Pagan Nations—-Infanticide com-
mon in Ancient Times—Let the Infant have the “ Benefit
of a Doubt”—Our Nation becoming Worse than the Pagans of
Old.seccsessrcsseseretesseesecesesrerersncsseneneecsesesseseesees PAGES 117-187

VI.
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF MARRIAGE.

Why the Earlier Scenes of the Drama are Elaborated and Exposed—

The Man and Woman just before Marriage—Shrinking Timidity
vs. Ungoverned Boldness—The True Secret of the Fall of Married
Women—This Exposure too Wanton for Apology if Remediless—
The fact of Child-bearing no Evidence of Enjoyment—Domeastic
Unhappiness in its Worst Forms—The Nuptial Chamber—Advice
CONTENTS. 9

 

to the Husband—Further Advice to the Husband—Advice to
Husband continued—How Often may the Conjugal Act be Re
peated ?—Moderation on Both Sides Required—“ Love Moderately
Long Love doth So”—Legitimate Means of Limiting Offspring—
All other Methods Wicked and Injurious—The Crime of Onan—
Conjugal Onanism continued—Effects similar to those of Mastur-
bation—Illustrative Case—Injunction of Continence—Case con-
tinued—Injunction Disregarded—“ So Ought Men to Love their
Wives os their own Bodies’—The Law Ignores Cruelty in the
Exercise of “Marital Rights’—Case in Court—Strong Evi-
dence—Cancer of Womb as a Result of Conjugal Onanism—
Philosophy of its Operation—Infidelity of Wives a Result—
Intercourse during Pregnancy—Punishment for such Violations
of Nature’s Laws—Abortions in the Early Stages of Pregnancy—
Disastrous Consequences of Excessive Coition—Intercourse dur-
ing Lactation—The Sexual Instinct in Old Age—Intercourse after
“Change of Life’—The Amorous Old Man—Ridiculous and Con-
temptible—“To have Loved Women too Much, is to Love Them
Always”--Examples of Marriage in Old Age—Time of Life
when Strict Continence should be Maintained—Deliverance from
the Tyranny of the Sexual Instinct— Change in the Organa
of Generation—Intercourse during Menstruation—Ill-assorted
Marriages—Bitter Regrets and Criminal Hopes—Resort to Adul-
terous Love—Iffect on the Man—Prohibition Laws Demanded—
The products of such Marriages—Illustrative Cases—The Wife
should never be Senior of the Husband—True Procreative Matu-
rity—Minimum Marriageable Age in different Countries—Five
Years the Minimum, Fifteen the Maximum—Consanguinity—
Customs of Different Nations—Consequences of Marriage be-
tween Relations—Marriage between Blood Relations—Albinos—
Physical Anomalies in Villages—Who may Marry—Trans-
mission of Organic Peculiarities—Transmission of Defects—
Crossing of Races ani Temperaments—Nuptial Contamination—
Faulty Conformation—Sex of Offspring—Influence of Moral
10

CONTENTS.

Conditions—Imaginary Pregnancies—Longevity of Bachelors—
Continence and Longevity—Genius of Children—No. excuse
for Libertinism—Mother’s Marks—Imaginary Resemblances—
Marked with a Pear—Acquired Resemblances—Theory of Mu-
tual Resemblance of Man and Wife—Man is soon Weary of
mere Carnal Pleasure—Translation from Proudhon—The Mar-
ried and Celibates contrasted—How Marriage saves from
Debauch...cscorersecrrcccccesen cesses snsssserenesessseesesssesP AGES 138-213

VII.
WOMAN WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY.

Regeneration of the Race—The Fall of Adam and the Redemp-

tion—Eve—The First Marriage—God’s Benediction on Mar-
riage—Matrimonial Condition of Noah and his Three Sons—
Who could claim recognition as Mrs. Jacob?—Degradation of
Woman among the Ancients—Stones of the Altar are Bathed
with Blood—Reason and Intellect not sufficient to Redeem
Woman—Corinth—Lais—Aspasia—Nameless Crimes—Athens—
Condition of Women in that Splendid City—Power of Phryne,
Aspasia, and other Courtesans—Poor Human Nature left to her-
self—Absolute authority of the Roman Paterfamilias—Manci-
patio—Powers it conferred—The Status of Woman in Rome for
three Centuries—Effect of the Law of the Twelve Tables—State-
ment of Pére Lacordaire—Commencement of the Story of Hal-
gerda—Betrothal by her father without her Consent—Murder of
her Husband, Thorwaldus—The Father changes his mind—Hal-
gerda consulted—God extends His protecting Arm over the Werld—
All Theogonies mention o Virgin Mother—Advent of the Re-
deemer gladdening all faithful hearts—Description of the Blessed
Virgin Mary—The Sublime Type of the Christian Woman—The
Voice says, ‘My Kingdom is not of this World”—Christianity
forbade Divorce as well as Polygamy—Virginity no longer a
CONTENTS. 11

 

Reproach but an Honor—Story of Perpetua and Felicitas—Abso-
lute and Divine Prohibition of Divorce—Quotations from the
greatest Primitive Authorities—Ambiguous position of Mr.
Smith—Brief glance at the Chinese—Small Feet—A Chinese
Barnum could make a Profitable Investment—Japan—Burmese
Empire—Hindostan—England Responsible for many of these
Crimes—Human Heart is the same every-where—Mohammed-
ism—Effects on Women—Accumulation of Fat, A Sine Qua
Non—A Mussulman a Human Brute—Parallel between Ancient
and “ Modern Athens ”’—Letter from Agent of Mormon Mission—
He Attacks some of the Magnates of the Land—Rapid Growth
and Increase of Mormonism—Practical and Theoretical Polyga-
mists—Downfall of Monogamy Predicted—A Militant Power Scc-
ond to None in the World—Cheerful Picture of Mormon Cities
compared with Others—Extract from Essay of Mrs. Julia Ward
Howe—Burning of Widows a Matter of Economy—Satirical Es-
say of Julia Ward Howe—The late “ Anti-Council” at Naples—
Infidelity can not succeed without the Women—Reform only Pos-
Bible through Christianity.......000sscwsssesereseserees Pacss 214-269

VIII.

PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGICAL COMPARISON OF
THE SEXES.

Physical Differences of the Sexes—Obvious Anatomical Differ-
ences—Woman Stamped with Physical Subordination — She
abounds in Cellular Tissue—Woman Lives Faster, and “Lives
for Two"’—Greater Influence of the Reprociuctive Sphere—
Woman Consecrated to Propagation—Differences in the Advent
of Puberty—Paternal Love not Natural—Nervous Temperament
Common in Women—Masculine Women and Effeminate Men—
Contradictions of Female Character—The Indeterminate adds a
Charm—Woman is in more Intimate Relation with Nature—
12 CONTENTS.

 

Woman understands Individuals—She has the Genius of Char-
ity—She excels in Minute Works—Inferior in Metaphysics—
Women do not Originate—They Execute but do not Invent—
Women Superior in Conversation—Woman’s Curiosity—Love of
God—Women can “Live upon Air’—Intelligence not Genius—
Qualities of “Heart”—Filial Love contrasted—The Cordelias
of Life—Filial Love—Illustrative Anecdote—Emancipate the
Daughters—Conjugal Love has no Heroes—“I am Yours”—
“She is Mine”—Love may regenerate Woman, but not Man—
Women as Nurses—Delicacy—Anecdote—Intellect and Heart—
Genius and Charity—Incradicable Differences—Equality of the
Sexed .ccccrescnencreee coreccaresenscesensssesscencees ss eeseneePAGES 270-804.

IX.
WHAT CAN WOMAN DO IN THE WORLD?

The Woman inspires and preserves the Man—Woman’s Position in
the Early Christian Ages—Learned Women in the Fourth, Fifth,
and Sixth Centuries — Learned Women in the Seventh and
Eighth Centuries—Examples from the Ninth and Tenth Centu-
ries—Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Centuries—Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Centuries—The Sixteenth Century—The Seven-
teenth Century—The Eighteenth Century—History proves wom-
an’s Intellectuality—Why not Enfranchisement and Eligibility?—
Ample Education Demanded—The Guardianship of Orphans—
Men and Women contrasted as Guardians—Necessity of Work
for All—Develop the Natural Aptitudes—Professions should be
studied by Opulent Women—The Wife should keep pace with
the Husband—Rights of Women to Fair Competition —Oceupa-
tions peculiarly adapted to Women—Women as Physicians—
Why Women are naturally adapted to Medical Practice—Suc-
cesses of Women in Literature—Origin of Female Teachers—
The Establishment of Ursutines—Foundation of “Ursulines” at
CONTENTS. 13

 

Clermont and Dijon—Anecdote of Francoise de Saintonge—Wom-
en as Professors—Reach the Intellect through the Heart—Ef-
fects of Premature Learning—Accordance of Tasks and Tastes—
Ambition of Fathers and Intuition of Mothers—Let Women be
Eligible as Members of “School Boards”—Philosophy of Teach-
ing already hinted by a Woman—Sound Advice from a Woman—
Another Extract from the same Source—Drawing and Painting
taught by » Woman—A Woman pleads for her Art—Letter to
the Author from » Woman—Teachers of Oratory and Elocution—
Dentists—Lecturers, Editors, Librarians, Sculptors—Actresses—
Ministers—Public Officers—Women in Convents—Dublic Offices
for which Women are better adapted than Men—Letter to the
French Convention—Confer Rights but Impose Duties—How to
make Patriots—Argument of Condorcet—Experience vs. Abstract
Right—Quotations from Montalembert—Examples of Female
Rulers— Examples of Women as Statesmen and Politi-
cians — Political Stump-Orator—Female Political Clubs in
France—Women of the French Revolution—Experiment of
“Woman’s Rights” in France—Woman’s Incapacity for States-

MADSDIPs..ccee see cccecsonecscceccecasssssvecsccessenscvssseees PAGES 305-376.

x.
PROSTITUTION.

Prevalence of the Evil—Only Christian Charity can deal with it—
No Official Recognition. ......ssecccesesesessecessveessensE AGES 376-378.

XI.

HAPPINESS IN WEDLOCK,

Application of Previous Studies—Object of Love—Domestic Happi-
ness in its Largest Sense—Shall “Courtship” continue in mar
riage ?—Narrative from Balzac—Conjugal Polities—Science of
14 CONTENTS.

 

Fig-leaves—Pernicious Education vs. Conjugal Happiness—Court-
ing vs. Hygiene—The Idea of Ownership in relation to Dis-
honor—Marriages of Inclination ””—Story of a Conjugal Hero—
“Falling in Love”—Cunning of Young Girls “in love "—Scene
from Romeo and Juliet—Time will “cure” the Delusion of Love—
How a Girl recovers from misplaced Love—Divine Grace necessary
to Happiness—Ideal of the Christian Marriage.....Paazs 379-408.

CONJUGAL APHORISMS....cessescscssecasessessesemPAGES 409-412,
APOLOGIA.

 

WO years ago, on the floor of the Senate-Cham-
ber, William Sprague, Senator from Rhode Island,
uttered language concerning the immoralities and crimes
of the American people to which the world listened with
astonishment. A general affectation of incredulity, a
disposition to ridicule the speeches and to anathematize
the speaker, were widely used to weaken the force and
to neutralize the benefits of the exposé so boldly pro-
claimed; but the conscience of the nation had been
awakened, the “ball had been set in motion.”

Almost at the same moment the author of this book
had conceived the idea of exposing the vices of the age
and the consequent dangers which menace the nation.
The speeches of Mr. Sprague encouraged him to perse-
vere, and the results of his labors are presented in the
following pages. It seemed to us that only a physician

could possess the materials, determine the philosophy,
15
16 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Encouragement to the Author.

 

and indicate the remedies for the existing evils; and,
white appalled at the responsibility and shrinking from
the task, we were nevertheless impelled by convictions
of duty too imperious to be resisted.

In the mean time a work was announced, by Dr.
George H. Napheys, which we hoped and believed
might cover the ground and save us the ungracious
task. The work appeared, was ably written, and filled
with useful advice, but our mission remained unfulfilled.
The reception accorded the volume, however, proved the
avidity with which people grasp at any thing which can
offer the hope of enlightenment upon subjects concern-
ing which they are tired of their long-enforced igno-
rance. It enabled us to add to the desire of being
useful the certainty of having readers.

The work of Dr. Napheys afforded us encouragement,
too, in preparing the way for a more general and ready
acceptance of certain very unpalatable truths, notably
among which is the prevalence of the alarming vice
treated in our Chapter IV. Of this vice he says:
“We now approach a part of our subject which we
would glatlly omit did not constant experience admon-
ish us to speak of it in no uncertain tone.” And again:

“Mothers are too often unwilling to entertain for a
APOLOGIA. 7

 

7
Recent Authors on Female Onanism.

 

moment the thought that their daughters are addicted
to such a vice, when it is only too plain to the physi-
cian.” But, like every other ungracious truth which he
is forced to handle, the doctor’s good nature or com-
plaisance leads him to qualify the rudeness of his utter-
ance thus: “But, though we believe such a habit is
more rare than many physicians suppose,” etc. Alas!
his assertion of “constant experience” is fatal to his
saving clause.

Another recent author says of the same vice: “ Moth-
ers generally delude themselves upon the pretended
ignorance of their girls, yet it is our painful duty to
state that our experience as a medical man has taught
us that very few go exempt from it.’* These extracts
may surely serve us as pidces justificatives. Those who
may regard our statements in relation to male and
female self-abuse as overdrawn are earnestly requested
to procure the work of M. Tissot, entitled, Traité de
? Onanisme, after perusing which they will be ready to
accuse us of moderation.

Our pages attest that we are of those who believe in
a “live God;” our title that we believe also in a “live

devil.” Those who ignore the latter are very sure to

* A ludicrously sweeping assertion, which we by no means indorse.
2
18 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Human Pride leads to Destruction. a

 

end by ignoring also the former. All forces which
operate in this world are resolved into these two: the
powers of good, and the powers of evil. The one cre-
ates, the other destroys. It is in pure and undiluted
Christianity only that our nation may hope, not for
reform merely, but even for prolonged existence. We
are of those who believe not in that absolute progress
which thinks to bring collective humanity to perfection.
The obstacle to this is human nature itself, with its
numberless imperfections. In the glittering generali-
ties and high-sounding but senseless words with which
we are promised a grand social regeneration we have
no sort of faith. We have still less when we inquire
who are the prophets of the new dispensation, and find
them to be hostile to the existing order and established
principles. According to them, we are to conquer the
future with new principles, new institutions, a new relig-
ion, and a new God. If we demand the credentials of
these reformers—their code, their authority, and their
works—we find for the basis of all, mere human pride,
the same pride which has ever led to disaster. From
it sprung the fall of angels and of man, and the catas-
trophe of Babel. It is portrayed even in mythology as
Phaeton driving the chariot of the sun, the war of the
APOLOGIA, 19

 

True Progress only attained through Christianity.

 

Titans upon the gods of Olympus, the flight of Icarus,
etc. So these insane “reformers,” with whom each
century is plagued, sink into the waves of oblivion
“unwept, dnhenorad, and unsung.”

We believe in progress—none more firmly—but we
believe only in that progress which is accomplished under
the influence of religion, of Christianity. We owe to
the Christian religion all the grand ameliorations with
which the human race has been endowed. Women owe
to it the position they now enjoy. (See Chapter VII.)
Through and by it only can they hope for still further
reform, even to the utmost limits of human perfection.
The laws of God are revealed through Christianity.
They are plain and simple. Those who infringe them
can not hope for immunity. The punishment is as
swift and as obvious now asin the days when He
“spake by His prophets.” “The sins of the fathers
are”—no less surely—visited upon the children.”
He still slays the Onans; He still curses the “seed of
woman.”

It has been often remarked that it is impossible to
write any thing new; that, however novel and however
well expressed one may suppose his conceptions to be,

he will always find, on extending his reading, that some
20 SATAN IN SOCIETY,

 

“Nothing New under the Sun.”

 

one has said the same thing before him, and has said it
much better. Whoever would realize the full force of
this, let him write a book.

For example, we supposed that our remarks in rela-
tion to the nuptial chamber (see Chapter VI) were
entirely new, if not to the professional mind, at least
in their open promulgation. We were mistaken, for,
long since those remarks were written, we have encoun-
tered precisely similar thoughts, and in works, too, ex-
pressly designed for the public eye. Thus M. Legouvé,
of the French Academy, in his Histoire Morale des
Femmes, says of the terrible first night: “The young
girl finds herself delivered to this man whose brutal
violence sometimes compromises, in a second, the hap-
piness of a life-time! What impression, indeed, must
not this gross attack produce upon the mind of a young,
trembling, delicate, nervous girl? Can we not imagine
what image of love must be engraven upon her spirit?
There are those whom this savage taking possession has
inspired with such horror that they have been stricken
with incurable sufferings; there are others whom this
memory alone has forever separated from their hus-
bands, thenceforth, for them, objects of repulsion.”

And of the consequent dangers to chastity when the
APOLOGIA. 21

 

 

Popular Authors on the Wedding Night.

seducer tempts he says: “How can she resist when, in
place of a nocturnal and warlike aggression, she encoun-
ters glances full of respect, hears low and suppliant
words, beholds transports of joy and tears of gratitude
for a fiower given, or a pressure of the hand? Then,
astonished, intoxicated, conquered by surprise even, she
will find herself without defense against that sentiment
which she has calumniated; thus the husband prepares
the triumph of the lover.”

M. Balzac, also, whose satirical Méditations embrace
a deal of sound philosophy, says of the young wife:
“Her imagination persuades her to expect pleasure or
happiness from a next day which will never arrive.”
“She will be silent no longer when she perccives the
uselessness of her sacrifices.” “If there is any thing
astonishing it is that the deplorable absurdities which
our customs have accumulated about the nuptial bed
have occasioned so few hatreds!’ He “meditates”
also upon the “secret laws in relation to women which
nearly all men violate through ignorance,” and puts as
an axiom the statement: “The husband who begins
with his wife by a rape is a lost man. He will never
be loved!” Alas! what else is the ordinary consum-

mation of marriage but a legalized rape?
22 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Patent Contrivances to prevent Conception.

Dr. Napheys says: “It sometimes happens that mar-
riage is consummated with difficulty. To overcome this,
care, management, and forbearance should always be
employed, and any thing like precipitation and violence
avoided. Only the consequences of unrestrained impet-
uosity are to be feared.” As usual, the Doctor spoils
the whole by this last sentence. It should be remem-
bered, however, that he alludes solely to physical dan-
gers, and leaves the psychological view entirely out of
the question.

From these extracts it appears that we are abun-
dantly justified, not only in our views respecting early
marital relations, but also in giving them publicity, since
authors of such distinction and merit have preceded us.

In speaking of “patents or secrets hawked about by
charlatans or advertised by quacks” to prevent con-
ception, Dr. Napheys says: ““Were they familiar to
intelligent physicians, yet with a wise discrimination
and a conscientious regard for morality, they could not
reveal them except where they were convinced that they
would not be abused.” Alas! can not a writer like
Dr. Napheys state one fact in positive terms? Must
this eternal loop-hole of escape be left for every crimi-

nal? Will the Doctor, in his next edition, instance one
APOLOGIA, 23

 

Physicians can not approve Them.

 

solitary case in the whole range of his imagination, not
to say his experience, where the employment of any arti-
ficial contrivance to prevent conception would be aught
but a crime? We have noticed (see note at close of
Chapter VI) the circular of a vile wretch who seeks
to disseminate his diabolical invention, but by what
method? Simply by addressing the thing to physi-
cians. Is it to be supposed that he would incur the
great expense and trouble of sending these circulars to
several thousand physicians if he could not safely cal-
culate upon the patronage of many among them? This
fact proves that there are worse villains than the drug-
gist, than the criminal wives and husbands. They are
these middle men, these pimps of Satan, these physi-
‘cians who, in the words of Dr. Napheys, “reveal them
where they are convinced they will not be abused!”
Apropos to this subject of “preventive measures,”
we could not have said less of it than we have said in
the text—we almost wish we had said more. In our
individual experience as a physician we find such widely
spread looseness of morals on this subject in particu-
lar, that every day confirms us in the belief that it is
verily and indeed a national curse. Women of great

intelligence and culture put to us the question, in all
24 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Two Wrongs do not make One Right.

 

seriousness: “Must a woman bear children, despite
all considerations of health or prudence?” “Shall a
husband whose bestiality is ungovernable, subject his
wife to burdens which he is neither able nor willing
to share?” Only yesterday a woman whose intelli-
gence and refinement, and whose social and religious
position have conferred upon her a truly commanding
influence, said to us: “I do not doubt that the use of
such an implement is a sin, but it seems to me a less
heinous offense than the bearing of children under cer-
tain circumstances.” The Christian religion teaches this
woman that one sin must never be avoided by commit-
ting another! But such objections are all swept aside
by the simple statement: there is no law which compels
a woman to have children unless she subjects herself
to the process by which they are naturally engendered.
We have gone even further, and have indicated a long
and regularly recurring season—longer than is neces-
sary for the complete satiety of all ordinary desires—
during which she is exempt from danger.* A husband

*As we have stated in the text, for about forty-eight hours before
the re-appearance of the monthly flow it is remotely possible for con-
eeption to occur. This is thought to depend upon the circumstance

that the fecundating fluid may remain “animated” in the vegina
during that time.
APOLOGIA, 25

 

Extract from “ Physical Life of Woman.”

-

who, when the necessity exists, is unwilling to come
under this mild restriction is a beast who should be
resisted at all hazards.

In our references to the “Physical Life of Woman”
we have not intended to detract from the real merits of
Dr. Napheys’ book, nor to charge him with unworthy
motives. In both we have the fullest confidence. Our
strictures have reference mainly to the fact that, while
in some instances he is not sufficiently positive in his
condemnation of existing evils, in others he is severe
enough in general terms, but is sure to insert some
qualifying clause which goes far to neutralize the force
of his denunciation. Perhaps this is a fault of good-
nature, but in some instances, as in that cited above, it
is positively dangerous. In his treatment of abortion,
however, he must be acquitted of the charge. Mere,
indeed, he indulges in no equivocal language, planting
himself fairly and squarely upon the decrees of religion
and science. He says: ‘From the moment of concep-
tion a new life commences, a new individual exists,
another child is added to the family. The mother who
deliberately sets about to destroy this life, either by
want of care, or by taking drugs, or using instruments,

commits as great a crime, is just as guilty, as if she
3
26 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

The Decree of Religion and Science.
= 4

strangled her new-born infant, or as if she snatched
from her own breast her six-months’ darling, and dashed
out its brains against the wall. Its blood is upon her
head, and, as sure as there is a God and a judgment,
that blood will be required of her. The crime she
commits is murder, child-murder. . . . This crime
is common. It is fearfully prevalent. Hundreds of
persons in every one of our largest cities are devoted
to its perpetration. It is their trade. . . . Those
who submit to their treatment are not generally unmar-
ried women who have lost their virtue, but the mothers
of families, respectable, Christian matrons, members of
Church, and walking in the better class of society. . .
Better, far better, to bear a child every year for twenty
years than to resort to such a wicked and injurious
step; better to die, if needs be, in the pangs of child-
birth than to live with such a weight of sin on the
conscience.” This has the ring-of true metal. We
like and indorse every word of it. After this we call
upon the Doctor and all who think with him to join us
in the endeavor to have erased from our statutes the
damning expression “criminal abortion,” because it im-
plies “justifiable abortion.” If the language of Dr.

Napheys be true, there can be no intentional abortion
APOLOGIA, 27

 

Of Boarding-Schools. Citations,

 

which is justifiable! It follows logically from the state-
ment, “ From the moment of conception a new life com-
mences,” that he who takes that life, whether under the
forms of medical or civil law, or the stimulus of greed
or benevolence, violates a higher law, and, “‘as sure as
there is a God and a judgment, that blood will be
required of him.” Until both science and the civil
code recognize this fact there will be but poor success
in the endeavor to suppress abortion. :

We would gladly have omitted our strictures in rela-
tion to boarding-schools. But our duty was imperative
to speak of them as they deserve, and they deserve: 10
better than we have said. In this we are more than
sustained by every independent writer and observer —
whom we have read or with whom we have, conferred.
M. Balzac disposes of them in language far more severe
than any we employ or can believe. We select a few
sentences from his Méditation VJ, entitled, Des Pen-
sionnats: “If this meditation shall leave in the memory
of all those who may peruse it a thorough aversion to
young ladies raised in boarding-schools, an important
service will have been rendered the public.” “Satan
alone could have devised a boarding-school for young

ladies, located in a large city.” “A young girl may,
28 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

National Courtships contrasted.

 

perhaps, leave the boarding-school a virgin, but not
chaste? “TE you have married a woman educated in
a boarding-school, there are thirty chances against your
happiness to one of all other causes, and you exactly
resemble a man who has thrust his hand into a hornet’s
nest,” *

In our remarks concerning courtship we have had
before our eyes our peculiar and American system.
In this regard we are the wonder of all other civil-
ized nations. Every nation has its customs apropos to
betrothals. The French, for example, accord the utmost
liberty to their wives, but surround their young girls
with all the precautions of the seraglio, thus concerning
themselves more with the past than the future. The
Turks take their wives without disquietude for the past,
but shut them up to be more certain of the future. In
the United States we take little pains with either past,
present, or future! A distinguished foreign author, Dr.
Clavel, speaks of us as follows:

“A girl free from her childhood to go where she
pleases and to look out for her own safety is soon
instructed in the dangers she may incur. At thirteen

* We repeat that we by no means indorse such wholesale assertions
as these, but we cite them to show that the horror of boarding-schoola
has inspired stronger denunciations than our own.
APOLOGIA. 29

 

A Learned Frenchman’s Views of us.

 

she understands passion and its object; she is scarcely
nubile ere she makes it an habitual text of conversa-
tion with her companions, and seeks to profit by the
lessons she has received. She runs in quest of a lover,
encourages him, on occasion accepts his most officious
attentions, and appears charmed with a sport greatly
in harmony with the instincts developed in her. Then,
it is so entertaining to reccive and reply to love-letters
at fifteen—to walk out of an evening with a very tender
and devoted young man without loss of reputation! The
latter is sure in advance of the favors to be accorded
him. If, in a moment of effervescence, he does not
content himself .with these, and seeks to go beyond
them, he is punished by a cessation of the téte-d-téle,
or even by arupture. Another succeeds him, and finds
himself ousted in his turn if he is not more respectful,
or at least more skillful.

“Such is the theory of that moral onanism called ‘ flir-
tation.’ It is, definitively, a species of coquetry which,
if less dangerous than the other form, has, nevertheless,
its inconveniences. I can well believe that the Amer-
ican girl can undertake travels under the escort of a
lover of twenty, pass the night by his side in a carriage,

lodge at the same hotel, and wander with him in vast
380 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Effects of the Habit of Coquetry.

 

’

solitudes without danger to her organic virginity. But
who will tell me what is left in the soul by ardors re-
pressed or deviated by incomplete caresses? Who will
tell me how that heart is worn out and extinguished
which is accustomed to solicit passion and to suppress
it as soon as enkindled? For one American woman
who, after having ‘flirted’ several years, really loves
and marries her lover, there are ten who at twenty
years have broken the springs of tenderness, contract
marriages of money, and end by giving themselves
without experiencing the joys of a veritable love.
The habit of coquetry, besides the moral defloration,
imparts something arrogant and dominecring to the
character of the young girl. Courted at a tender age,
mistress of herself and responsible for her own actions,
accustomed to receive the most humble obedience from
the most energetic men—with such an education, it is
impossible for her to become timid and engaging. She
holds the masculine race in truly shabby esteem. In
public places she seizes the seat of the first comer
without deigning to thank him even by an inclination
of the head. In marrying she takes a man of business
whose whole time is employed in speculations or in

labors to provide for the ménage, but who leaves her
APOLOGIA. 31

 

Rudeness of American Public Manners,

 

sole mistress of the household, in which he assumes no
authority.

“The practical spirit of the Americans felicitatcs
itself upon this result. To prevent the misconduct of
their wives and daughters without spending time in
watching them is, for them, a thing as profitable as
it is clever. They congratulate themselves on having
nothing to do with the direction of the houschold; it is
one care the less. They trouble themselves but little
at the cheerlessness of their firesides. Whatever time
they do not give to business, they pass at the club,
bar-room, or hotel. That they have at home a well-
served table and an excellent bed, suffices for their
contentment.

“In fine, the American education tends to isolate
the husband and wife; to shut up the latter in the
house; to deprive her of all participation in affairs,
though surrounding her with cstcem and respect; to
invest her with a superiority which is superfluous from
lack Of application. From this results a rudeness in
public manners which too often borders on brutality.
Where shall the American acquire those habits of ele-
gance, gallantry, and delicacy of feeling which are

never derived save from contact with women? From
32 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Weakness of Family ‘Ties afid Fraternal Love.

 

the moment he ceases to ‘flirt? he is only occupied
with business and politics. He takes a companion only
when weary of adventures, and when he wishes to have
children, but. in creating his home he dreams not of a
retreat where art and love afford the principal charms.

“But, if it be true that man and wife are destined to
find their greatest element of happiness in mutual ten-
derness; if the ménage only occupies the place which is
due to it on condition of having affection for its basis;
if public manners, in order to be refined, require the
legitimate influence of the two sexes; if the presence
of woman alone, is capable of imparting the love of art
and the beautiful, then the education gencrally adopted
in the United States and in England, leaves much to
be desired. It weakens paternal authority, relaxes the
tics of the family, and the children of the same father
rarely love each other. Sons take leave of their par-
ents, brothers, and sisters without tears. They under-
take long journeys and expeditions of years’ duration
as though their absence were only for a few days.

“A girl destined to concentrate upon a husband and
children the elements of love which exist in her, ought
not to waste her heart in coquetfy nor in ephemeral

sentiments, as is justly charged upon the girls of
APOLOGIA, 33

 

Fortifying Influence of Modesty.

 

England and North America. It is far better that tho
instincts combated by great physical and mental ac-
tivity, should be restrained by that flower of chastity
which in woman is allied to self-respect and high-spirit-
edness. Nothing is so charming as those organizations
which blush at their own nudity, although there are no
witnesses; who turn their eyes from.the mirror rather
than behold the reflection of their uncovered bosoms.*
Far from seeking voluptuous images, their glances shun
them as a kind of defilement; their ears are closed to
audacious words, and their startled imaginations repel
thoughts capable of wounding an exquisite delicacy.
This chastity of soul and body, this flower of innocence,
is an excellent preservative against the influence of the
senses, and even against the attempts of seduction.
“Desire is really dangerous only when it brings
voluptuous pictures incessantly before the imagination.
It thus holds a thousand contests with virtue which it

conquers in the end; it installs itself in the bosom of

# Every one can recall that scene in the opera of Fra Diavolo where
the robbers, concealed in a closet, are witnesses of the disrobing of
Zerlina. How touching and life-like is the lascivious chuckling of
the imbruted wretches awed to respect by the modest chastity of her
demeanor, and changed to devotion by the sweet piety of her even-

ing prayers!
384 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

_ Picture drawn by Rev. A. D. Mayo.

 

the intelligence of which it bécomes the habitual pre-
occupation; it imparts a deplorable sagacity in the
discovery of that general law of love which rules the
world. Then the theater is sought which presents only
the spectacle of passion, romances which study love
under all its forms, the scandals of the neighborhood,
or simply the confidences of a young married woman.

“When a young girl has acquired in solitude this
theoretical science of sexual sentiments, the hour will
always come when desire will deliver her to the temp-
tations of the seducer. On the other hand, if the
imagination remains pure, desire is merely an inde-
terminate uneasiness, merely a sorrow capable of irri-
tating the nerves, of causing sleeplessness, or, at most,
a few tears.”

Not more flattering is the following picture, drawn
by a native artist, Rev. A. D. Mayo:

“The crowd of American girls do what women would
do every-where, neglect the higher culture of the soul
in scheming or waiting for the sensual advantages of
life, and spend the first quarter of a century rather
in superficial occupations and inquiring after desirable
husbands than in toiling to become good wives and

republican mothers.
APOLOGIA. 85

 

Secret Cause of Fearful Collapse of Female Health.

 

“This fearful push for the material prizes of our
National life, explains the imperfect education of Amer-
ican young women. Mothers and daughters vie in the
cultivation of those temporary graces and accomplish-
ments which are supposed to bring young men to a
crisis in the affections, while the solid qualities which
can alone retain the love of a rational man or fit a
woman for genuine success, are postponed till life is
upon them. . . . And this is the secret cause
of the fearful collapse of female health in America;
for standing on tiptoe and watching a chance to leap
on board a fairy’s floating palace that wavers over a
stormy sea, is not a healthy, though an exciting occupa-
tion. It forces children through the grades of girlhood
with steam-power rapidity to young ladyhood, while
they should be romping in pantalets, learning science
or household duties under their teachers or mothers.
This rush of energy to the surface of life, the excite-
ments, hopes, and fears of a young lady’s career, Icave
the decp places of the heart dry, and create a mor-
bid restlessness of the affections that preys upon the
very springs of physical existence. So the majority
of American girls, when they have obtained their lover,

are not physically fit to become his wife and the mother
36 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Practical Infidelity a Predisposing Cause.

 

of his children, and the bright path of girlhood dips
down into the valley of shadows that married life is to
woman in thousands of American homes. . . . The
republican home that shall cheer, console, and elevate
the American people, and the republican society that is
but its extension and idealization, are yet a vision.”.
(Essay on Woman in America.)

The reverend gentleman should have added to his
list of causes self-abuse, flirtation or “moral onanism,”
conjugal onanism, but above all, and as predisposing
cause, practical infidelity, and the picture would have
been complete. .

In our rules for physical guidance we shall be justly
considered severe. Interpreter of the decrees of Nature,
we could not be otherwise. Her laws are sharply de-
fined; her penalties are inexorable, if not always swift.
So we can not hope to be pleasing to all—perhaps
not to many, perhaps not even to a very small number.
Let it be remembered that we have not written to please.
Had such been our ambition, we should have selected a
widely different class of subjects. We have written to
instruct, and we assure our readers that to heed om
‘instructions is their only route to happiness—to their

continued enjoyment of even carnal pleasures. What
APOLOGIA, 37

 

For whom we have written.

 

greater service could we hope to render our fellow-creat-
ures than to declare to them the revelations of science
in language deprived of ambiguity and cleared of the
mists of technology?

Little matters it to us that we shall doubtless obtain
many readers from the singularity of our title and the
nature of the topics discussed. Those who shall seek in
our pages the gratification of a libidinous curiosity, will
be disappointed, but, better still, they will be seared!
Their terror will prove eminently salutary, for, in de-
scribing the evils of sexual excesses and unnatural
Practices, we point with the finger of authority which
they dare not despise, at the deplorable consequences in-
volved—consequences which none may escape. Indeed,
in the whole range of practical medicine, there is noth-
ing more positive than the dangers we have described.

It is true that our book contains much that is not
proper for the perusal of children. We have not writ-
ten for school-girls! But suppose that by some chance
many such should embrace stolen opportunities for its
inspection. We ask, what harm? We are perfectly
sure that the very best treatment of young persons
suspected of secret bad habits, would be the leaving of

this volume in their way, and a young girl who can
88 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

A Plea for Fair Criticism.

 

bring herself to read it after she has discovered the
subjects on which it treats, NEEDS to read it, and her
parents may wink at her “indiscretion.”

Women will find in our -pages many thorns which
will pierce with an unwelcome thrust; they will also
find, we sincerely believe, a rose for every one. We
only ask them to judge us fairly—to avoid, for once,
that essentially feminine fault, fair only in war, of de-
molishing our forces in detail. Our chapter entitled
“ Psycho-Physiological Comparison of the Sexes” must
be estimated as a whole, and not from detached sen-
tences. What would be our fate, for example, if some
female critic should impale us upon our assertion,
“woman has far less idea of justice than man,” with-
out our more than counterbalancing admission regard-
ing her charity? We beseech our countrywomen to
“read us through and through” (women can always
do that!) before they judge us—fairness is so necessary
in these days of fierce antagonisms.

Our principal design, when we commenced the mak-
ing of this book, was to stigmatize two deeply rooted
vices from which very few establishments are exempt.
The first was the mal-initiation of young wives; the

second was what we have termed conjugal onanism.
APOLOGIA. 389

 

Vicious Practices combated by Reason.

 

The latter is, in our opinion, a national curse, not
only as one of the principal causes of our wide-spread
moral degradation, but as most powerfully influencing
the rapid decline of our native population, both in health
and numbers. But.too painfully aware of the rapidly
diminishing influence of faith and morality on the con-
duct. of men, we have appealed to the fashionable idol,
reason, by whose aid we have demonstrated the disas-
trous consequences of sexual deviations. In doing this
we have been enticed far beyond our original purpose
by questions which were unexpected, and which could
not be evaded, by reason of their intimate relation to
our subject. In grouping the materials for our task our
horizon was widely expanded, and we beheld not only
medicine, but political economy, public morals, and even
dogmatic theology, all more or less intimately concerned
in our labors. When compelled to touch upon the lat-
ter, however, we have endeavored to respect the relig-
ious tenets of all who profess Christianity; but we have
exhibited little sympathy or forbearance for those whose
obvious tendencies are infidel.

We have examined marriage in its nature and object,
and have proved that divorce is incompatible with either,

and that its re-establishment can not but entail the most
40 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Qualities Resulting from Mixed Schools.

 

‘lamentable consequences upon our social and political
status. We have shown the dangers of intermarriage
between blood relations, and have sought to awaken
public attention to the fatal consequences of the mar-
riage of old men with young girls. We have sought to
enlighten married persons concerning their rights and
duties, and the laws which operate in conjugal relations.
In teaching them to avoid excesses and abuses we have
even ventured to declare certain facts hitherto not gen-
erally understood, and which many economists have
hesitated to promulgate.

Our strictures on that fault of our common school
system which necessitates promiscuity of the sexes, are
founded on the experience of every age and country,
no less than upon sound scientific researches. We-
know very well the arguments which will be opposed
to us, but we also know that they are the direct ema-
nations of the false philosophy of the day, along with
free-thinking, free-loving, et hoe genus omne. “Smart-
ness,” “cuteness,” pertness, boldness, and masculinity
enter largely into the education of our “young ladies”
under the present system.

We have written for “all sorts and conditions of

men,” and have, therefore, been compelled to speak
' APOLOGIA. 41

 

Should these Topics be discussed?

 

plainly, without prudery, and to “call things by their
right names.” To do this modestly, and yet with the
necessary avoidance of technical terms, has not proved
the easiest portion of our labor. If we have not suc-
ceeded in this endeavor, it has not been from lack
of purity of intention. After all, in the language of
an ancient author: “If what we have written shall
scandalize any immodest person, let her accuse rather
her own turpitude than the words which we have
been obliged to use to express our thoughts. We
trust that the modest and judicious reader will read-
ily pardon us for the expressions which necessity has
forced us to employ.” Natura veneranda est, non
erubescenda.

The question whether these topics should be discussed
at all in the vulgar tongue and for the popular eye is
one on which there is still great diversity of opinion.
We assert, however, that the question has settled itself.
In the daily press which is the reflex of public morals,
and in the journals devoted to “ Woman’s Rights,” these
delicate subjects are constantly being handled, and in a
manner which educates the people, and educates them
falsely. The translation of M. Michelet’s L’ Amour, a

false, sentimental, and pernicious work, has attained,
4
42 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Abominable Current Literature.

 

in the United States alone, the enormous circulation of
over two hundred thousand!

And now comes (we will not give the title) a periodical
of two hundred and fifty pages, attractively arrayed in
variously tinted ink and paper “corresponding with the
topic of each article.” Seven of the articles of its first
number are designed to overthrow “the current views
of the Christian Churches upon questions of faith,”
while six of them advocate the abolition of marriage!
An article on “Scientific Propagation” contains the
following damnable language: “For instance, polyg-
amy, so far as the fact of obtaining and supporting
many wives implies that a man is superior to his fel-
lows, is an approximation, at least, to Nature’s wild
form of breeding from the best, which is more than
can be said of monogamic marriage. Again, slavery
is always, more or less, a system of control over prop-
agation, and, so far as the interest of masters leads to
selection like that practiced in animal breeding, it leads
to the elevation of the subject race. Probably negroes
have risen in the scale of being faster than their mas-
ters for the same reason that horses and cattle, under
man’s control, rise faster than man himself. Even com-

mon licentiousness, cursed as it is, is sometimes not
APOLOGIA. 43

 

“Stirpiculture’? Openly Advocated,

 

without compensations in the light of the propagative
law. It is very probable that the feudal custom which
gave barons the first privilege of every marriage among
their retainers, base and oppressive though it was, actu-
ally improved the blood of the lower classes. We see
that Providence frequently allows very superior men to
‘be also very attractive to women and very licentious.
Perhaps, with all the immediate evil that they do to
morals, they do some good to the blood of after gener-
ations. Who can say how much the present race of
men in Connecticut owe to the numberless adulteries
and fornications of Pierrepont Edwards? Corrupt as
he was, he must have distributed a good deal of the
blood of his noble father, Jonathan Edwards, and so
we may hope the human race got a secret profit out
of him. Such are the compensations of Nature and
Providence.” And so this precious article proceeds to
advocate, deliberately and scientifically, what it terms
“stirpiculture,”
of lawful wedlock!

Another article, entitled, “The Love-Life of Auguste

or “breeding from the best,” in or out

Comte,” from the pen, alas! of a woman, pictures his

friend, Clotilde de Vaux, as “the representative of

’

the noblest attributes of humanity,” and as bearing the
44 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

The Discussion forced upon us.

 

same relation to his religion and its believers as “ Laura
to Petrarch, as Beatrice to Dante, as Heloise to Abe-
lard, if not—with all reverence be it spoken—as the
Virgin Mary to the Christian Church.” A prominent
newspaper, in a notice of this periodical, terms it “de-
cidedly the most radical and revolutionary, as well as
one of the most subtile publications ever issued in
America,” and justly styles its theories “the latest
postulates of the antichristian leaders, and part of the
history of opinion in the sect of the non-religious.” It
should be remembered that the hosts of Satan are being
largely recruited by just such means as the publication
of this “subtile” magazine, and it is altogether a false
delicacy which shrinks from the discussion thus forced
upon the public attention. It were to abandon the field
wholly to the enemy, a burial of our talents for which
we shall assuredly be called to account.

While we would not be the first to throw down the
wall with which the ages have guarded these mysteries,
we enter fearlessly in the breach in our capacity of
surgeon, a mission altogether peaceful; and, as there
is no inconvenience without its compensating advan-
tage, so it has seemed to us that the ruthless invasion

of the sanctity of private life now become the fashion,
APOLOGIA, 45

 

Our Hopes and Aims.

 

may be utilized by the education of the masses in
things which, if they know at all, they should know
rightly.

We believe our work will prove of service to all
who will take the trouble to “read, mark, learn, and
inwardly digest” it. Should it teach but one man how
a wife should be “initiated,” and, by consequence,
should it rescue but one woman from the sad fate
which otherwise awaits her; should it snatch but one
boy from the dreadful vortex into which he else had
plunged, or save but one girl from moral and physical
defloration, it will not have been written in vain. That
it may do this for many thousands is our sincere hope
and prayer.

We do not affect to have said every thing on the
subjects we have treated, but only to have said truly.
When we have entered the domain of Science we have
proceeded by her light and with her documents; when
we have spoken from our own observation we have
“painted from nature.’ We have nowhere entered the
field of hypothesis and mere analogy, but have had
constantly before us the types which we have studied
in society. There are those who may recognize us

through our incognito, and who will be ready to make
46 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Authors from whom we have drawn.

 

personal applications. We beg to assure them that,
save in the few instances where circumstantial illustra-
tions are given, we have had in view types rather than
individuals.

Scholars will discover that we have done some “ book-
making.” We have drawn rather freely upon certain
foreign authors for our matériel. Especially in the
chapters entitled “Woman without Christianity,” and
“ Psycho-Physiological Comparison of the Sexes,’ we
have consulted, and here and there freely translated
from the profound works of Belouino, Legouvé, Mayer,
the monk Debreyne, Rauland, and others acknowledged
in the text. Our aim has been less to present some-
thing new than something useful and practical. If the
fact that “others had said before, and better said,”
many things which we were impelled to write, is one
but little flattering to our amour propre, we have still
the consolation of feeling thereby strengthened and
fortified in the conviction that our design will prove
serviceable to our fellow-creatures.*

Indeed, we have so far endeavored to write with a
pure intention and to divest ourself of the pride of

*So far as we are aware, we can not lay claim to absolute novelty in
more than one thought in our entire work. We refer to our physical
theory of the mutual resemblance of married persons. See page 208.
APOLOGIA, 47

 

Why the Author wrote Anonymously.

 

authorship that we determined, from the first, to with-
hold our name, though in opposition to the request
of our publishers and the wishes of many esteemed
friends. But we are bound to acknowledge that other
and far more selfish considerations have contributed to
strengthen this determination. Prominent among these
is the fact that there is something so sacred in the rela-
tion of physician and patient that the lcast exposure
of confidences, however securely names and places may
be shielded from recognition, savors somewhat of mala
fides. If the author were known, people would recog-
nize characters, would make applications, despite the
utmost precautions, and we greatly fear lest the confi-
dences and confessions so lavishly bestowed upon us in
the long past, would be less freely given in the shorter
future. So our sphere of personal usefulness might be
needlessly sacrificed to the wider field over which we
have sought to extend it.

Again, we rejoice in the love and esteem of those
by whom we are surrounded and with whom we are.
in daily contact. All would be changed if we were
publicly known as the author of this book, for who-
ever handles fashionable foibles and crimes “without

gloves”—above all, if he professes to speak from
48 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Confessions.

 

personal observation—is very sure to be hated. We
can not afford this. We have not the courage to en-
counter it, unless, indeed, there were a grand principle
to serve or a great good to be accomplished by the
sacrifice.

Another weakness: Nearly all books on the sexual
question which have been presented for popular read-
ing—in our language, at least—have been sheer adver-
tising media for mercenary practitioners. Our incognito
redeems us from all possible suspicion of belonging to
this class! The names of our publishers may well
serve as a sufficient guarantee of the character and
reliability of the work. The same remark applies with
even greater force to our permitted dedication to Gov.
Sprague. :

Certain imperfections’ of style are apparent. They
were inseparable from the haste with which the manu-
script has been prepared—amidst the most engrossing
professional and professorial life, and wholly during
hours snatched from sleep. The urgent demand of our
publishers has even compelled us to produce a consid-
erable portion through the aid of a phonographer. Our
critical readers will not fail to appreciate these disad-

vantages, and will doubtless make generous allowances.
APOLOGIA, 49

 

Let our Object plead for us.

 

We owe it to our publishers to say that we were a full
year behind our promises with them.

The experience of which this book is the offspring
has banished many illusions, many beautiful dreams—
has withered many flowers! In probing truths and
facts we have found only the comfort of being useful—
but the pleasure ends there. Happiness, for us, would
be found, perhaps, in ignorance. Experience pricks
our bubbles, and human pleasures are so made of bub-
bles! We have read somewhere—in the French of
Madame Emile de Girardin, perhaps—‘“There are
young persons of twenty years who have the gout;
there are others who have experience. The latter are
the more unfortunate!”

Finally, we present this volume as the embodiment
of long and arduous study, observation, and experience,
m the hope of contributing somewhat to the cause of
civilization. May the grandeur of our object plead in
extenuation of the imperfect manner in which We have

attempted its accomplishment!
5
SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF BOYS AND
YOUNG MEN.

HE evils and dangers of the present system of

educating and bringing up the boys of our country
are too obvious to require minute description; and yet,
startling as are the facts, the remedy is strangely ob-
scure to even the very best thinkers of our time. Ir-
religion and infidelity are progressing part passwu with
the advance guards of immorality and crime, and all
are fostered, if not engendered, by the materialistic sys-
tem of school instruction, and the consequent wretched
training at home and on the play-ground. The entire
absence of all religious instruction from the school-

room, which has resulted from the utter impossibility of
51
52 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Generation of Infidels. Number and Character of Habitual Church-goers.

 

harmonizing the multiform creeds, and the growing fal-
lacy of “refraining from prejudicing the minds of our
children in favor of any particular system of theology
until they are able to think and choose for themselves,”
are fast bearing fruit in a generation of infidels, and we
are becoming worse even than the pagans of old, who
had, at least, their positive sciences of philosophy, and
their religion such as it was, to oppose which was a
criminal offense. To those who would dispute this
somewhat horrible assertion, the author would point to
the published statistics of Church attendance, from which
it appears that of the entire population but a very
small proportion are habitual church-goers. Deducting
from these again those who attend Church simply as a
matter of fashion, or from other than religious motives,
and there remains a minimum almost too small to be
considered, abundantly sustaining our charge. The dis-
integration of the prevalent forms of religious belief, the
rapid multiplication of sects, the increase in the ranks
of intellectual skeptics, the fashionable detractions from,
and perversions of, the Holy Scriptures, acting with the
influences already mentioned, may well cause alarm.
But we have not only the removal of the salutary re-

straints of religious influence from our popular system
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 53

 

Promiscuous Public Schools. Dangerous Elements in Human Nature

 

of education; we have the promiscuous intermingling of
the sexes in our Public Schools, which, however much
we may theorize to the contrary, is, to say the least,
subversive of that modest reserve and shyness which,
in all ages, have been proved the true egis of virtue.
We are bound to accept human nature as it is, and
not as we would wish it to be, and both Christian and
pagan philosophy agree in detecting therein certain very
dangerous elements. Among the most dangerous and
inevitable is the sexual instinct, which implanted by the
Creator for the wisest purposes, is, perhaps, the most
potent of all evils when not properly restrained, re-
tarded, and directed. This mysterious instinct devel-
ops earlier in proportion as the eye and the imagination
are soonest furnished the materials upon which it
thrives, and long before the age of puberty it is strong
ead well-nigh ungovernable in those who have been al-
lowed these unfortunate occasions. The boy of the
present generation has more practical knowledge of this
instinct at the age of fifteen than, under proper train-
ing, he should be entitled to at the time of his mar-
riage; and the boy of eleven or twelve boastfully
announces to his companions the evidences of his ap-

proaching virility. Nourished by languishing glances
54 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Stimulants to the Sexual Instinct. Onanists and Roues.

 

during the hours passed in the school-room, fanned by
more intimate association on the journey to and from
school, fed by stolen interviews and openly arranged fes-
tivities, stimulated by the prurient gossip of the news-
paper and the flash novel, the gallant of twelve years
is the libertine of fourteen. That this picture is not
overdrawn every experienced physician will bear wit-
ness. Revelations are rare; instances of detection are
extremely infrequent; so liberal are the opportunities
afforded, and so blind are those whose duty it should be
to guard, We boldly proclaim that the roués among
boys outnumber the onanists by thousands, and that, de-
structive and revolting as is the latter vice, it is even
more tolerable to contemplate than the other. The
one, if persevered in, must reveal itself; the other keeps
secret its hidden transactions. The one wrecks body
and mind; the other grows and fattens to invest the
subtlest of demons. The writer could engage to select
the onanists of a school by a walk among the pupil's;
he could not promise so much for the young Lotharios.
Indeed, if he could, and it were to be made a cause for
expulsion, he fears there would be but a slender attend-
ance in any school thus viséd. Onanism, though called

the solitary vice, is essentially gregarious in its origin.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 55

 

Parents and Guardians criminally responsible for this Vice.

 

It is, indeed, by unrestrained intercourse with each
other that boys are taught and encouraged to pursue
this destructive practice. From false notions of deli-
cacy, with a prudery as astonishing as it is criminal,
the parents and guardians of boys refrain from all allu-
sion to the subject, while in their hearts they must re-
alize the imminence of the danger. Ready and willing
to acknowledge it in the abstract, they seem to feel,
and certainly they act, as though some special immunity
were granted to their own protégés. Thus it happens that
a boy contracts a habit, which, discovered too late, is
well-nigh unconquerable in its thralldom, as it is for-
midable in its sad results, and which a few earnest,
timely words would have surely prevented.

We charge then that the present system of education,
by its faults of omission and commission, is directly re-
sponsible, not, it is true, for the bare existence, but for
the enormous prevalence of vices and crimes which we
here deplore, and we call upon the civil authorities to
so modify the obnoxious arrangements of our schools,
and upon parents and guardians to so instruct and gov-
ern their charges, that the evils may be suppressed if
not extinguished. By the former this may be measura-

bly effected in isolation of the sexes; by the latter, in
56 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Where many boys receive their first lessons in Crime.

 

encouraging the confidence and preparing the minds of
boys for the great physiological crisis and its conse-
quent dangers, whose advent they can easily and surely
discern. In many instances the requisite instruction
and counsel may be best imparted by the family physi-
cian, who can be consulted for the purpose; and there
is no reputable physician who will not undertake ‘the
task with both prudence and alacrity, while from such a
source the words have an importance and authority which
few parents can command. The boy’s intercourse with
his fellows and with servants should be closely watched
and always suspected. Many, alas! have received their
first lessons in immorality or crime from the hostler
or the cook, while a single night with a strange bed-
fellow may initiate a boy in mysteries to which he had
else remained a stranger. This last danger is greatly
increased if the casual room-mate be by a few years
his senior; for the power of mischief possessed by the
older boy is increased in proportion to his size, and,
alas! his experience. If a boy be an onanist he is sure
to corrupt the smaller boys of his acquaintance when-
ever a safe opportunity presents itself, and thus chil-
dren of six and twelve fall victims to those of twelve

and eighteen. The author remembers a few of his per-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 57

 

Personal Experiences of the Author at a Tender Age.

 

*sonal experiences, which, for the purpose of illustration,
he will recount. At the age of six he was allowed to
attend an evening party with his sister, many years his
senior, for the purpose of ‘taking part in some tableaux.
A violent storm compelled several to pass the night
with our entertainers, and the author occupied the same
bed with a young gentleman of seventeen. On that
occasion a lesson in vice was imparted, whose import
was then unknown, but whose impression was indelible;
and though his instructor in the diabolical art is now a
grave old gentleman, a leading and respectable member
of an aristocratic Church withal, the weird remembrance
of that night of the tableaux, is as freshly associated
with the venerable personage as though we were boys
again. :

At the age of eight the writer was lodged, at a water-
ing place, in the same room with three girls, respect-
ively ten, twelve, and fourteen years of age. The elder
of these little misses succeeded effectually, during the
few weeks association, in inducting her companions into
the science of reproduction, while the male member of
the quartette was aptly used in illustration of the sub-
ject. The matronly dignity with which this lady now

chaperones her young daughters in the most fashionable
58 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Culpable Custom. Boys and Girls Sleeping in the same Room or Bed.

 

circles of one of our most fashionable cities, does not
in the least diminish the feelings of hostility with which
at least one of her pupils regards her, and which the
publication of this anecdote is the first opportunity af-
forded him to gratify. His secrecy during his involun-
tary pupilage, was not the result of an innate sense of
wrong or shame, but was induced solely by the subtile
representations of his seductress.

The custom of permitting children of different sexes
to sleep in the same bed, or in the same room, is sur-
prisingly common in this country, even where the excuse
of poverty is wanting. The mere matter of convenience,
or of innocent solicitation is often deemed sufficient to
warrant a practice which can have but disastrous re-
sults, if nothing more comes of it than an undue famil-
iarity with the differences of organization. It is aston-
ishing what small credit we give these little people for
powers of observation and comparison, while the least
intimation of the possession of them, by the wondering
query of word or look, is frowned down or rudely
checked, with no sufficient explanation of its impropri-
ety. Instances are by no means rare, of girls sleeping
with their younger brothers long after womanhood, and

the fashion is to retort upon those who remonstrate with
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 59

 

Concupiscence not the only Passion Developed.

 

the parent, “Evil to him that evil thinks.” It is a
truth, proven by the experience of ages, that separation
of the sexes should begin early, at least at four or five
years, for the impressions of early childhood are the
most ineradicable of life. Concupiscence, though the
strongest and most injurious, is far from being the
only passion needlessly and wrongfully developed in
boys; those of cupidity, extravagance, dishonesty, and
faithfulness are notable. “Just as the twig is bent
the tree’s inclined,” is a homely adage, inclosing a
deal of Gospel truth, which it is nowadays the fashion
to ignore almost as completely as Solomon’s aphorism,
“Spare the rod and spoil the child.” With every
allowance for the vast differences in temperament and
disposition, we believe the statement axiomatic, that
parents are strictly responsible, before God, for the
confirmed vices of their children. The punishment
meted out to young offenders for drunkenness, stealing,
and the like, might too often be more advantageously
inflicted upon the really guilty parties, the neglectful
parents; and the secret of this truism is precisely the
fact that the proclivities of the individual are developed
very early. Thus a boy in whom lying seems a part

of his very nature is morally certain, if every inch of
60 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Remedy for Falsehood. . Novel, yet Efficient.

 

ground be not vigorously contested, and the habit early
eradicated, to become an adult knave. The writer
knows two brothers in whom the opposite qualities of
unimpeachable veracity and utter mendacity were fully
apparent as early as the fourth and sixth years, yet, by
indomitable care and patience, they are now, at the ages
of ten and twelve, equally models of irreproachable
honor. Innumerable remonstrances, whippings, and
privations were vainly tried upon the little reprobate,
until a plaster covering the mouth, and duly perforated
to admit of respiration, (but not of falsehoods,) proved
specific in a very few applications; so a habit which
else had ruined the man was easily uprooted in the boy.
A placard announcing “ thief,” not exhibited beyond the
nursery, may do as much for one who manifests an early
tendency to kleptomania. The vices of cupidity and
extravagance may be early cured by opposite lessons,
and great patience and ceaseless observation are re-
quired to accomplish a radical cure in either case, but,
nevertheless, it can and should be done. Many an ava-
ricious monster may thank his doting parents for the
qualities which render him odious, and which were ine-
radicably fixed upon him in childhood by encouragement

of his miscalled “ cuteness,” while the ruined spendthrift
‘SATAN IN SOCIETY. 61

 

. . y
Belligerent Patient. Distorted Virtues.

 

may live to curse the “fond paternal ass” for his undue
indulgence of mere childish lavishness. Not long since
we were quietly examining a little patient, who, not rel-
ishing the process, struck us in the-face. The mother
took the matter as an excellent joke; not so the author,
who indulged in the unpleasant reflection that the germ
of a possible murderer was being carefully nourished
in that fashionable “south front.” These fits of rage
on the part of little boys, are often foolishly encouraged,
or at least quietly regarded as “marks of spirit” and
very “comical.” So they are in badies; they are terri-
ble in men.

Most vices are only distorted virtues, and the very
elements we have so much occasion to dread, are, when
properly directed, so many sources of excellence. Pos-
itive qualities are of sloy growth, and, whether good or
evil, they invariably date back to the nursery. Crime,
then, may be restrigted within very narrow limits, and
by proper management, may be banished from good
society and monopolized by those who, like Topsy,
“only growed.”

The author would avoid, as far as possible, conflicting
prejudices and interests, but in closing this Chapter he

feels it would be incomplete without a protest against
62 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Boarding-Schools. History of ‘One of the Best.”

 

boarding-schools. The best that can be said of them is
that they are necessary evils. As generally conducted
they are perfect nurseries of vice. We were tempted, a
few years since, to send our little boy to “one of the
best.” The professedly “religious” and “family” char-
acter of the school, the reputation of the distinguished
minister who governed it, no less than the estimable char-
acter of his family, who assisted, gave the impression of
a “model school.” At the end of the first quarter the
boy was taken home, for the reason that he could not
say his prayers without hiding in his little wardrobe to
escape the assaults and jeers of his companions of the
dormitory. Without saying his prayers, to use his own
language, God bless him! he “would not have dared to
sleep.” This school is a very popular one, embracing

“only children of first-class parents,”

and the boy was
quite unwilling to leave it, but has since made revela-
tions. which fairly make one shudder to contemplate.
We are not prepossessed, so far as our experience en-
titles us to judge, with the cheerful or salubrious char-
acter of small-pox, ship-fever, or plague hospitals, but
we solemnly declare that our boys should sooner reside
in one of these than in such a moral pest-house as the

Hoarding-school in question. The fact is that nearly
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 63

 

Sins of the Eye and Imagination. Popular Sophism.

 

every boarding-school is an omniwm gatherum of bad
boys, and sons of snobs, of those expelled from Public
Schools, and those whose parents, shoddy aristocrats,
are shocked that their sons should associate with the
common herd, while the few gentle spirits, whom unfor-
tunate circumstances, as orphanage or deluded parents,
may have driven there, are, in time, ruined or sadly
corrupted. They are money-making enterprises, these
schools, and the greedy pedagogue dare neither to re-
fuse admission nor to make other than fecble and super-
ficial efforts to reform the young scape-graces placed.in
his cage. We readily concede that a good boarding-
school is preferable to a bad home, but a “ good board-
ing-school” is well-nigh a contradiction in terms, a rara
avis in. terra. What boy is taught that the eye and
the imagination are literally as capable of sinning
as the more sensible members of his body? The
plain texts of Scripture on this point are become
as empty words. Who is taught nowadays that adul-
tery of the heart is the very crime itself? Rather is
not this, by the sophism of the day, perverted to foster
additional occasions of damnation? As thus: “I can
not prevent the desire; the desire is as bad as the act;

therefore I can be no worse off if I commit the act!”
64 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Home Piety, and less interest in ‘ Borioboola Gha.””

 

Obsta principiis, (resist the beginnings,) is regarded as
so much fine talk. Where is the boy who has firmly
impressed upon him, by Christian parents, the obvious
principle that an evil thought encouraged is a sin actu-
ally committed? that bad guests may come, but they
must not be entertained? If there were more home
piety deserving the name, and less interest in “ Borio-
boola Gha,” it were better for both religion and morality.

It will be readily perceived, from what has been al-
ready said, that the transition of Young America from
boy to man is too brief to be separately considered.
The habits acquired at school are perfected in the uni-
versity or the counting-room. For good or for evil
they go on, ripening in these arenas, and bear fruit in
the hosts of skeptics, infidels, and libertines now crowd-

ing our land.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 65

 

Mission of Education in its largest Sense.

 

IT.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF GIRLS AND
YOUNG WOMEN.

TT DUCATION, considered in its largest sense, has the

mission of rendering the youth of both sexes beau-
tiful, healthful, strong, intelligent, and honest. Thus
it comprehends such physical and moral training as
shall most surely conduce to these objects. We have
but to glance around us at the dwarfed, miserable,
sickly specimens of feminine humanity, which really
constitute the rule rather than the exception, to observe
at once how far short of the attainment of these ends
is our system as actually conducted. The very name
of youth should imply beauty, strength, vivacity, and
integrity. We have said sufficient elsewhere to show
that these attributes in no way pertain to our American
youth as a class. We propose briefly, in this connec-
tion, to analyze somewhat philosophically, the errors

in practice which have conduced to these disasters. It
6
66 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Mens sana in corpore sano. The Desideratum,

 

is conceded on all sides that the race is unmistakably
deteriorating. With some it is the fashion to charge
this upon the advance of centuries, and to say that as
the age of the race increases deterioration advances,
If this were true of the human family, it ought also to
be true of the brute creation; for the same laws which
govern the physical condition of the one, are likewise
applicable to that of the other. Sheep, cattle, and
horses, however, when placed in conditions favorable to
their development, increase in fecundity, in size, in
strength, and in beauty. It can not be otherwise with
man. But the mens sana in corpore sano, (a healthy
mind in a healthy body,) is the desideratum. The soul
participates strongly in the vices of the body. Ros-
seau says, very truly, “The more feeble the body the
more it commands; the stronger the body the more it
obeys.” Among savages and beasts, and even the low-
est classes in civilized communities, the feeble or imper-
fect die before reproducing themselves, so the race is
perpetuated only by the strong and healthy; but with
civilized nations, science preserves the existence of de-
bilitated creatures, who marry and reproduce their sim-
ilars. The art of medicine, while it has succeeded in

the task of preserving the existence of such beings, has
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 67

 

Ilereditary Vices in Constitution. Who need a Physician,

 

altogether failed in that still more noble duty, clearly
within its province, of bringing the feeble to the condi-
tion of the strong; in other words, of eradicating he-
reditary vices of constitution. The child who inherits
the consumption of his father, surrounded by dangers
which menace the lungs, is placed in conditions of tem-
perature, air, and exercise which are most directly cal-
culated to develop his inherent malady. The son of
the madman, in the place of enforced indolence, is
daily crowded with excessive study. He who inherits
intestinal disease,is delivered to a government of chance
or caprice. Neither temperament, constitution, weak-
ness, nor diseased proclivities of children are in any
way studied or considered, either in families, or in pub-
lic and private establishments. These facts apply with
still greater force to the ignorant and poorer classes,
but happily, with them, misery kills off the weaker,
those who are not sufficiently strong to resist it. So
we hear much of the health and vigor of the children
of the poor. They are dying in hordes! but the blame
should not rest wholly upon science. The physician is
almost universally employed only for those who are
actually and palpably ill; his advice is unsought, and

even despised, for those who are apparently well.
68 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Means of Prevention. Remedy of Natural Defects

 

When people learn to avail themselves of the means of
prevention afforded, by the medical art, then we may
hope to see the race of pigmies give place to a genera-
tion of giants. Based upon an exact knowledge of the
constitution of the parents, and foresecing the dangers
which will menace the child, proper physical education
will indicate, in due time, the surest means of avoiding
them. The varied nutrition, the changes of air, and
water, and places, which our wonderful system of rail-
roads puts at our disposal; the varied and skillful sys-
tems of exercise, the use, even, of certain medicinal
agents, all these will enable us to regulate and to
change the most deplorable hereditary taints. It is not
claimed that vices of constitution can be thus entirely
abolished, or that the puny children may be thus
brought to the standard of the most robust, but we do
claim that natural defects may be so far remedied that
a condition of well-being and comparative comfort, as
well as a wonderful prolongation of life, may be secured,
and that, in a very few generations, these taints may
be eradicated, and the race vastly improved.

With few exceptions, we are not born with the dis-
eases with which our parents are afflicted, but only

with a tendency to those diseases. These usually de-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 69

 

Sunshine and Air carefully excluded.

 

clare themselves at about the age at which our parents
were first attacked. This affords time and ample warn-
ing to pursue sucha judicious system of physical and
mental training as shall almost certainly prevent them.
For example: a child whose father died of consumption
at the age of thirty-five, knows that whatever may be
his physical conformation, he is at least liable to fall a
victim to that disease between thirty and forty. Now,
he has twenty or thirty years of preparation to avert a
threatened calamity. Who can doubt what the result of
a proper effort must be?

The “weakly systems” are not the only ones who
suffer from the prevailing false notions of education;
the most robust and healthy organizations are debili-
tated and destroyed. At an age when the organism
demands air, and space, and sun, and motion, when
the senses are dominated by the inherent necessity for
exterior action, we behold children, girls especially,
condemned to inaction, excluded from light and air
in the paternal mansion, carefully secluded from both
through tender regard, if not for the fine furniture, at
least for the complexion and the clothing of the poor
creatures who are thus made to violate the most obvi-

ous dictates of nature. Entire days are passed without
70 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Physical Improvement of the Mothers Demanded.

beholding a ray of sunlight or breathing the external
air. In the boarding-schools—well, they are hot-beds
of iniquity at the best—it would really seem as though
every thing were expressly devised to weaken the body
and to enervate the moral senses. Pupils are con-
strained to breathe the vitiated atmosphere of the study
hall during many hours of each day, subjected the
while to an amount of mental application to which
even adult natures would succumb. In most of these
establishments the provisions for physical development
are wretchedly defective; indeed, they are worse than
none, because, under high-sounding names, they delude
with the impression of security.

We make these reflections here because the improve-
ment of the race depends so largely upon the physical
improvement of the mothers of the race, and because
it is the fashion to deprive girls of physical advantages
to even a greater extent than boys. The girls of our
country who have the misfortune to be bred im city life,
whether in fashionable or semi-fashionable circles, are
truly objects of commiseration. In this fast age the)
very methods most calculated to force a premature,
womanhood, are those universally adopted, and both at

home and at school the poor girl sees and hears
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 71

 

Maidenly Freshness and Innocence becoming a Myth.

 

much that is positively poisonous that our only wonder
should be, not that our women are proverbially sickly
and delicate, but that we have any women at all deserv-
ing the sacred name.

Much that has been said in the Chapter devoted
to boys, is equally true of girls, but with the latter a
system of training is pursued, which not only forces
a precocious sexual development, but wholly destroys
that maidenly freshness and innocence which, at the
pace we are going, will soon cease to have real exam-
ples, and will be ranked only with the dreamy visions
of poets and romancers.

We purpose to deal plainly with a few salient facts
within the knowledge and observation of all, and to
connect these facts with thcir legitimate consequences,
in the prevalence of evils so universally deplored. In
behalf of girls, even more strongly than of boys, the
author would plead for early isolation of the sexes—
not that complete separation which would exclude chil-
dren of the same family from innocent and legitimate
participation in childish sports and pleasures, but iso-
lation in sleeping, and dressing, and all those little
matters which expose the differences of conformation,

and are capable of suggesting ideas of curiosity or
72 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Early Isolation of the Sexes. Love of Dress in Girls.

 

comparison. With the opulent there is no sort of diffi-
culty in effecting this to perfection, and with nearly all
classes it can be carried to the fullest extent necessary
_ for the purpose. There is required only a full apprecia-
tion of its necessity and binding obligation. This kind
of isolation should begin as early as the fourth or fifth
year, and rigid supervision, with lessons in propriety,
should be maintained thereafter. Erotic propensities
are often very early manifested, and, if as early de-
tected, can be easily controlled.

Love of dress is less an innate passion with girls
than it is one so early implanted by pernicious example
and precept as to seem congenital. It is, moreover,
fraught with the greatest dangers, not only. to the
health of mind and body, but even to chastity itself.
The statistics of prostitution abundantly prove the cor-
rectness of this assertion, and show the ruinous vanity
of mothers who inoculate their daughters with this
ridiculous rivalry almost with the first words they are
taught to lisp. Whatever pride may actuate a mother
to decorate her little daughters with the flummery of
fashion, should be carefully explained to them as the
requirement of neatness and propriety. Surely, a little

harmless equivocation here were necessary for those
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 73

_ A New and Horrible Rivalry. Children’s Parties.

 

 

who will engage in this preposterous contest. It were
far more honest, however, as well as simply decent, to
limit the outward adornment of girls entirely to the
requirements of comfort and scrupulous neatness.

Of late years a new and horrible rivalry has arisen—
that of children’s parties. It is now a common occur-
rence to hold these entertainments for little children, at
“which the extravagances and dissipations of their elders
are imitated to the very letter. Each fond matron
seeks to excel her acquaintances in the mimic pomp
and fashion displayed, and a modern child’s party dif-
fers from others only in the size of the dramatis
persone. The newspapers pander to the unnatural
performance, and the superb toilets of the misses and
exquisite make-up of the masters are elaborately bla-
zoned in the column of “Fashionable Gossip.” Chil-
dren from eight to thirteen are thus initiated in the
mysteries of dissipation, including flirtation and liaisons.
The author has little patients who have attended from
three to twenty of these diabolical inventions in the
course of a single “season.” “Whom the gods wish
to destroy they first make mad.”

The wrongful commingling of sexes in the Public

Schools has been already commented on, and little need
74 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Boarding-Schools dangerous to the Physical and Moral Natures.

 

be said of it in this connection more than to earnestly
reiterate the recommendation in Chapter first. It is
worse even for the girls than for the boys, and we
know of many parents who send their boys to public
and their girls to private schools, contending that pub-
lic schools improve the former, but degrade the latter.
“O, reform it altogether!”

If boarding-schools are dangerous for the morality
and physical well-being of boys, they are infinitely
more so for girls. A single “bad girl” in a boarding-
school will corrupt, or at least taint, the entire number.
It is well-nigh impossible for a pure-minded and innocent
young girl to avoid listening to or beholding, if she
do not finally participate in, the debasing conversations
and practices of her co-pupils, and we know there are
some things which no young lady can -listen to or
behold without pollution.

*¢Vice is a creature of such hideous mien,
That, to be hated, needs but to be seen;

But, seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

Thus a bad education impresses upon the whole moral
nature a false and vicious direction, and that exquisitely

frail and delicate organization, all made of nerves and
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 75

 

Influence of Music, Dancing, etc.

 

sensibility, the most impressionable and sensitive being
of living nature, is thus early placed in the very con-
ditions most calculated to enervate and destroy her.
All medical authorities agree that nothing is more cal-
culated to exalt sensibility, to sensualize the heart, and
expose the nervous system to the most fatal perturba-
tions than a luxurious and voluptuous education. The
reading of novels, the pleasures of the senses, the fre-
quenting of balls and theaters, even the cultivation of
accomplishments, such as music, dancing, and the like,
exert a prodigious influence upon the female morale.
Says a famous author: “ Daily experience proves that
music especially saddens and enervates the mind, or
immensely exalts the nervous system, and hence too
often opens the door to all the vapors and nervous acci-
dents which are the sad portion of women of the opu-
lent classes.’’ This, remember well, O parents! is the
concentrated wisdom of the medical experience of every
age and country; not the unsupported opinion of any
one man however brilliant his genius, and that, in sci-
ence, there is no difference of opinion whatever on this
topic. The remedy is less obvious. He would be rask
indeed, who would enter a crusade against the dominion

of fashion so far as to prohibit the cultivation of those
76 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

In the Abuse of Good Things, Evil Generally Consists.

 

arts which are really innocent, and even ennobling, ix
themselves, and which lead only indirectly to pernicious
results. It is in the abuse of good things that evil
generally consists, and we would, therefore, compromise
with the demands of the age by requiring that lessons
in both dancing and music should begin early in life,
and be made tasks rather than pleasures, and that all
occasions in which these accomplishments can conduce
to dissipation or excitement, be scrupulously prevented
antil the great physiological change from girl to woman
has been accomplished. We are satisfied that it is less
the polite arts themselves than the occasions to which
they lead, which impart to them their dangerous char-
acter. Surely, that sublime language, “the concord of
sweet sounds,” which, we are taught, is the very highest
form of adoration and love, to which even the hosts of
Heaven areattuned, can not be intended by our Creator
to foster unchaste thoughts or desires, save, as in other
things, by the unnatural perversion of His gifts. As
for the perusal of romances, attendance on balls and
theaters, the luxurious indolence of the drawing-room,
the perusal of newspapers, they should be forbidden
fruit to every young person, prohibited as positively as

strychnine or arsenic; not even allowed as subjects of
SATAN IN SOCIETY. q7

 

7
No intermediate Stage between Childhood and Adult Age.

 

discussion or argument. There are those who will read
these pages who, with an inconsistent prudery—or hy-
pocrisy, (?)—impossible to believe, will deem our work
imprudently plain, and who yet do not scruple to place
in the hands of their daughters the journals of the day,
albeit teeming with advertisements and “news items”
of the most revolting and indecent character.

Young America in petticoats, as in trowsers, mani-
fests no intermediate stage of existence between child-
hood and adult age. If she do not marry from the
school-room, she is at least “engaged.” The excep-
tions are those who do not secure eligible “lovers,” or
those who are too unattractive to find any. An “en-
gagement,” in these modern times, is, however, rather a
genteel method of legalizing improper relations with
some favored one of the opposite sex, than a verita-
ble betrothal. These singular liaisons often exist for
a long time, and become patent to “all the world”
before they are even suspected by the parents whose
consent is regarded as a mere matter of form, and is
sought, if matrimony be finally determined on, (!) more
for the purpose of securing the necessary supplics than
of seriously submitting the question of approval. Too

often a girl is “engaged to be married” many times
78 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

Privileges of acknowledged Lovers.

 

before the “right one” is secured, and the young heart
is “used up” before it should dream of love. We waive
the question of propriety in permitting young ladics
and gentlemen to hold possession of the drawing-room
night after night, to the banishment of thcir natural
guardians, who are too indolent or too careless to dis-
charge their duties of supervision, and inveigh at once
against the privileges which, with happily increasing
exceptions, are so improperly accorded to those who
hold the acknowledged relation of lovers. It is the
pernicious custom to accord to these favored beings all
the rights of solitude and retiracy that they could rea-
sonably expect if the marriage ceremony had actually
transpired. \Except a private bed-room, they are as sc-
cluded whenever they may choose to be so, as any mar-
ried couple could wish. With closely drawn curtains,
and with doors either locked or sacred from intrusion,
they -pass the “wee sma’ hours ayont the twal’” in
learning the details of passion, and too often its entire
mysterics, to the detriment of their physical, and the
utter ruin of their moral, health.

Only a short time since there appearcd in one of our
principal pictorial weeklies, a beautifully executed de-

sign representing two lovers unwilling to say good-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 79

 

Pictorial Illustration. American Courtship.

 

night. The youthful gallant has sunk exhausted into
a large arm-chair. On the mantel stands a clock, the
indices of which designate the hour, half-past cleven, to
which the charming betrothed regretfully points, while
riveting a gaze of languid passion on her admirer, who
returns it with meaning attention. The whole scene is
painfully suggestive, and is chiefly notable in its truth-
ful revelation of our national style of courtship. A
very young lady, herself just “engaged,” pointed out
to the author, as a defect in this representation, that tle
lady’s hair and dress were too smooth and unruffled for
the hour and the occasion. ‘“O, times! O, manners!”
Really, our American courtships are but little better
than “bundlings.” Under all these circumstances it is
not surprising that a broken engagement should seri-
ously compromise a young lady’s matrimonial prospects,
and that young men should be shy of one whose charms,
they are well assured, have been already very frecly
lavished on another. The author knows of young la-
dies, very pretty and attractive girls, who shine as
belles in society year after year, who are unable to
obtain husbands wholly from the circumstance that they
are too well known to the young menas girls by whom

the most daring freedoms have been not only unrebuked,
80 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Warm Appeal to the Young Women of America.

 

but encouraged. Long drives and walks in solitary
pairs, unchaperoned at balls and parties, even the sa-
cred edifice polluted by flirtations scandalous to behold—
of what are the fathers and mothers of America think-
ing, to afford these allurements and temptations?
Should not their own experience lead them to protect
those dependent on them from such dangers? If those
whose authority is unasserted or unheeded, do not re-
strain them, let them listen to instruction from one who
knows thoroughly the weakness of women and the per-
fidy of men.

Young women of America, if you knew how lightly
you are estimated hy those who so earnestly and passion-
ately seek your favors, you would certainly deny them, if
the effort cost your lives. There are degrees in libertin-
ism? the affectionate caress, the wanton impropricty, the
deliberate seduction; and, however humiliating the asser-
tion may be, it is nevertheless a fact, that these several
stages are at the command of him to whom you surrender
the outposts of your purity. The world is full of maxims
which demonstrate the truth of this. “If a woman hesi-
tates, she is lost;” “ C’est le premier pas qui cotite;” and
this sentiment is multiplied into all languages, held by all

nations. Such is the universal sentiment of mankind, and
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 81

 

Wherein the Danger Lies.

 

all history shows that the more innocent a girl may be
at heart, the more sure is she to fall if she surrender
the advance guards of her honor. The philosophy of
the affair is plain. No pure-minded girl would permit
the slightest familiarity unless strongly impelled to do
so by sentiments of love. This could not exist without
its component element of passion. Latent, undevel-
oped it may be, but the spark is there, and if once
developed, it is uncontrollable in direct proportion to the
strength of love and confidence. The thought that you
are deliberately surrendering yourself to the power of
any man, is so startling that, if you believed it, you
would be well-nigh exempt from danger; for you would
certainly guard the fortress with a vigilance that no
strategy could surprise.

The danger, then, consists in the indulgence of pleas-
ures which seem pure and innocent in themselves, but
which alas! are the poisoned arrows which destroy the
very power of resistance. In point of fact, however,
it makes but little difference whether the mere physical
virginity be lost or not, if the maidenly purity of heart
be gone; if all degrees of sensuality, save the mere
physical consummation, have been tasted. The Biblical

instructions on this subject are literal truth, be sure
82 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Details of a Sad Occurrence iv Fashionable Life

 

of it, and no sophistry can change the obvious meaning
of Divine revelation. Remember that you have actually
committed the sins which you have willfully entertained,
desired, and cherished in your hearts. Repent of them
in secret humiliation, and sin no more. Obsta principiis,
(resist the beginnings.)

Even while writing this chapter we learn the partic-
ulars of a most sad, yet too common occurrence, so
common, in fact, that we are tempted to narrate it ag
typical, especially as the heroine is from one. of our
leading and most fashionable families. Mr. Croesus, a
gentleman of high notions and exclusive tastes, has a
family of lovely and beautiful daughters, who receive
their gentlemen friends @ la mode. One is an exqui-
sitely molded being, whose highly-wrought and sensuous
nature imparts a charm to her manners which has ren-
dered her an object of great attention, and early brought
around her hosts of fashionable striplings, indeed all
whose social rank could procure them an entrance to
the spacious drawing-rooms of old Croesus. One suitor
after another was accepted by the daughter, and as
promptly rejected by the father. No measures were
adopted to prevent the opportunities for forming these:

attachments, but when formed they were rigorously,
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 83

 

Finale of the European ‘Tour.

 

almost ferociously, opposed. To be kept a prisoner in
her chamber until the required pledge of renunciation
had been obtained, was a thing of frequent occurrence
for the poor susceptible being, who could not learn the
lesson that she might hold her fingers in the flame, but
must not burn them. It was to break up one of these
affairs of the heart, more serious than the rest, that a
European tour was resolved upon, and for some months
the family have been abroad. A European “count”
found no trouble in bestowing his fondest attentions, but
every obstacle to his honorable proposals; and how sur-
prising it must have been to the gentleman to be reccived
as an acknowledged and favored suitor, yet denied the
rights which, by the usage of his country, he might
justly claim. The result was altogether natural; an
clopement, detectives, thirty-six hours’ concealment, dis-
covery, and a meeting of the respective papas to ar-
range for the wedding ceremony. Dissatisfied with the
terms proposed, (probably of the marriage portion, for
these European gentlemen are great fellows for such
details, especially when they condescend to marry un-
titled American girls,) the father continued his travels,
taking along his daughter, what was left of her, perhaps

with the hope of disposing of her to better advantage,
84 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Matrimony the End and Aim of Existence.

 

and so, just now, all Europe is scandalized, less at the
very natural maneuver of M. Le Comte, than at the
inconceivable stupidity of Croesus, pére.

The girls of our country are trained and cducated in
the idea that matrimony is the end and aim of their
existence; to marry well, that is, to marry wealth if
possible, but at all events to marry. The air-castles
of our young misses are the objects of their thoughts
and dreams, the topics of their daily conversation. Not
one word do they hear of the good old-time veneration
for voluntary virginity. Their Bibles have for them no
literal meaning as regards the passages inculcating the
rewards awaiting her who piously resolves upon perpet-
ual chastity. Our modern Christianity, alas! has no
honorable niche for “old maids.” They are the Pari-
ahs of society, at least in the estimation of young girls
and married women. “QO, poor thing! she might have

married Mr.

 

, and be now the wife of a cabinet
minister ; he always loved her, but I suppose she looked
higher then.” O, miserable worldlings that ye are!
Wait till you behold her wearing the crown of the vir-
gin, and singing the celestial canticles that none others
may dare to sing; fortunate if you behold her not as
Dives beheld Lazarus.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 85

 

Latest Modern Invention. Woman’s Rights.

 

The latest modern invention, which we fear will plague
the inventors, is the proposition that women are entitled
to the same “ privileges ” as men in conducting political
affairs, and in all offices of honor and emolument now
monopolized by the “sterner sex.” This heresy has
been christened by the seductive cognomen of “ Wom-
an’s Rights.” Set in motion by a singular class of
advocates, it would almost seem to have become epi-
demic. As though dissatisfied with the irksome lullaby
and the wearisome routine of household duties, hosts
have joined the invading forces, and now their conven-
tions, their speeches, their special organs, and their
sophistical catch-words have assumed so great propor-
tions that they really seem on the verge of securing
political prominence.

The fierce and indomitable energy of the American
people, which has survived the most mighty social and
political revolution of this world, must and will have
some fiery excitement with which to occupy itself; and,
having just ridden down its pet hobby-horse of slavery,
it has seized upon this bauble of Woman’s Rights, and
bids fair to dignify it into a terrible engine of destruc-
tion. Let us examine what it will do for our daughters

in its present aspect, and what if carried to successful
86 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Her “ Rishts”’ will prove a most prolific Source of her Wrongs.

 

operation. The mere discussicn of such a revolution as a
possibility, the bare toleration of the idea, is sufficient in
itself to injure the mind and to operate pewerfully upon
the imagination of these impressionable creatures—to
excite in them feelings of indignation and dissatisfaction
with their present condition. Every argument that
ingenuity can suggest, is brought to bear in assuring
them that they are deprived of certain inherent “rights”
by an unjust and tyrannical age. It is of but little
moment to them what these so-called rights may be;
the feeling that they exist, and that they are unjustly
withheld, is sufficient to occasion a sort of sentimental
rebellion dangerous to tranquil repose and to feminine
modesty. If carricd out in actual practice, this matter
of “Woman’s Rights” will speedily eventuate in the
most prolific source of her wrongs. She will become
rapidly unsexed, and degraded from her present cxalted
position to the level of man, without his advantages ;
she will cease to be the gentle mother, and become the
Amazonian brawler.

While it is difficult to sec how any single abuse could
be reformed, it is casy to imagine how very many would
be created by the “ political enfranchisement and eligi-

bility of woman.’ It would most assuredly introduce
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 87

 

Men not Reformed, but Women Debased by the Ballot.

 

a new and alarming element of discord into the family
circle, already weakened, well-nigh ruined, by the sin-
gular customs of the time.

The tendency to isolation has been ably commented
on by a recent writer as the greatest danger to Amer-
ican society; the living in hotels and boarding-houses,
and the “loss of the restraining and purifying associa-
tions that gathered around the old homestead.” What
remains of the family is only held together by the
graces and virtue of woman; and the facility of obtain-
ing divorces is fast breaking down even this last hope.
The same writer truly says, that “when the family
goes, the nation goes too, or ceases to be worth pre-
serving.”

We can not imagine how men can be reformed by
investing woman with the ballot, but we can readily
believe that many women would thereby become de-
based. The chivalric veneration with which man now
regards woman, arises from the distance, as well as the
difference, between them; in fact, from the advantages
she possesses as woman. This would vanish with her
political equality, for he would then be in perpetual
and open strife and rivalry against her: whether as a

political enemy or political ally, the distinctions of sex
88 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Laxity and Negligence of Home Duties.

 

will be forgotten, and she will lose that respect and
deference with which she has hitherto been so gener-
ously endowed; she will be treated rather as man than
as woman; “she can not have the advantages of both
sexes at once.” Nature, not legislators, has assigned
to the two sexes their respective spheres, as we shall
prove in another chapter, in which the “woman ques-
tion” will be argued more at length.

We have shown that the very evils we deplore, and
which it is sought to reform, have arisen from laxity
and negligence of home duties. How, then, can we
hope to reform them by still further increasing this
laxity and neglect? If what we have said of domestic
training be true, it will be seen how necessary it is to
render mothers more faithful and vigilant, instead of
weakening their interest and obligation to become so.
Observe the families of those women who devote almost
their entire time and attention to even meritorious and
essentially feminine, but outside works—how neglected
and proverbially wild and ungovernable are the chil-
dren. Every one says of such a woman, “She docs
good in a general way, but neglects her poor family,
who have the prior claim to her attention.” But how

is it with those women who neglect these sacred duties
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 89

 

Women’s Rights, Babies’ Wrongs. Case Supposed.

 

to follow schemes of ambition or of pleasure? They
are justly regarded as monstrosities. Extend the suf-
frage to woman, throw her into the political arena, set
her squabbling and scheming for office, and you multi-
ply indefinitely the number of monstrosities. The evils
of child-murder, of unnatural repugnance to offspring,
will, for obvious reasons, be prodigiously increased; so
the attainment of women’s rights will prove the estab-
lishment of babies’ wrongs.

Suppose a case: Mrs. Le Baron is elected to a
lucrative and honorable office. She finds, to her infi-
nite disgust, that she is “as ladies (used to) love to
be, who love their lords.” She must give up the office
or the nursery. Who can doubt what her choice will
be if she have already broken down her morality by
employing the usual political intrigue? Indeed, with
female suffrage “political intrigue” will gain a new
and even a worse significance than it now enjoys. It
will certainly prove an additional and very powerful
danger for woman’s chastity.

Undoubtedly the special destiny of woman is to be
wife and mother. If, from mysterious causes, she fuil
of this destiny, there are the poor and motherless, the

forsaken and the down-trodden, the sinful, and the
8
90 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Spiritual Children of “Old Maids.”

i

 

sorrowful, and the suffering—behold her charge! Be-
hold the spirtual child.en of “old maids!”

Reforms are needed—none can be more sensible of
this fact than we—and the remedy can be applied by
women; this we not only concede, but claim. But it
is as woman, as wife, as mother that she must do the
work: as woman,to soften aspcrities, and to refine what
else were coarse and brutal; as wife, to render home
bright and cheerful, “the sweetest place on earth;” as
mother, to direct and inspire the noble and righteous
aspirations of her sons—to train and mold to exqui-
site beauty, grace, and loveliness the character of her
daughters—to implant in all her children that piety, and
filial love, and obedience which are the surest guaran-
tees of respect for civil law and authority.

Then let us have our daughters educated as women,
and not as men. Let us have them trained for the
duties of the household and the nursery, and the sweet
enchantments of the domestic hearth. “Be that you

arc—that is, a woman; if you be more, you’re none.”
—SATAN IN SOCIETY, 91

 

The most Frequent, as well as most Fatal, of all Vices.

 

III.
MALE MASTURBATION.

IEWING the world over, this shameful and criminal
act is the most frequent, as well as the most fatal,

of all vices. In our country, however, it is second in
frequency—though not, surely, in importance—only to
the crime of libertinism. It is encountered in all ages,
from the infant in the cradle to the old man groaning
upon his pallet. But it is from the age of fourteen
to twenty that its ravages are most frequent and most
deplorable. Nothing but a sense of inexorable duty, in
the hope of effecting a radical reform by awakening the
alarm of parents and teachers to the enormous frequency
and horrible consequences of this revolting crime, could
induce the author to enter upon the sickening revelation.
Granted that, as already stated, it must, if persevered
in, reveal itsclf, it is only the most aggravated cases

that are brought to the notice of the physician, and
92 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Masturbation in Children before the Age of Puberty.

 

these usually are hopeless and incurable. The vast
majority escape detection, and the practice in such,
though indulged to a comparatively moderate extent,
does not the less seriously, but only the less completely,
impair the intellect and lay the foundation of physical,
mental, and moral maladies, the causes of which are
usually as unsuspected as they are consequently per-
sistent in their operation.

The frequency of masturbation before the age of
puberty is in direct relation to the development of the
nervous system, and the opportunity afforded for ac-
quiring a knowledge of. the sin from pernicious examples.

The predominance of the action of the nervous sys-
tem over that of the other portions of the human
organization is exceedingly frequent in young children,
and is the most powerful predisposing cause of the vice
in question. It can never, of course, be attributed to
the stimulation exerted on the genital organs by the
presence of the spermatic fluid, for in them this secre-
tion does not exist. It sometimes happens that, by a
kind of special organic idiosyncracy, the organs of
generation become the seat of abnormal sensitiveness
or irritation in young subjects, at once the occasion

and the signal for the explosion of this most terrific
SATAN IN SQCIETY, 93

 

Method Adopted by “‘ Wise Women.””

 

and fatal passion. This explains the great number of
examples in which, even in the nursery, during the
“innocent slumbers of childhood,” the genital organs
are observed to be in a state of erection, or erethism,
unnatural at that age, and which can by no possibility
be supposed to subserve any physiological end. It is
obvious that, in such a condition of abnormal excitation,
the least accidental touch, or even an involuntary or
mechanical movement, may very easily lead to a most
frightful and devouring passion.

However, in all probability, the most common origin
of this nervous concentration and precocious sensibility
is to be found in the criminality of passionate creatures
to whose care the innocent little beings are confided, as
nurses or young servants. “Wise women” have been
known to adopt this method of quieting the outcries of
the youngest infants! Such children never fail, sooner
or later, to avail themselves of their frightful discovery.
Facts of this nature demand the vigilant solicitude of
moralists, heads of families, principals of schools, of all
persons, in short, to whom the destinies of the young
are confided.

French physicians have already bestowed great atten-

tion on this subject of infantile masturbation, though
94 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Priapism in a Child of Four Years.

 

there are probably few physicians of experience in this
country who can not recall facts equally astonishing
with those we are about to quote.

Dr. Doussin Dubreuil relates the case of a child who
contracted the habit spontaneously at the age of five
years, who, in spite of all that could be done, died at
sixteen, having lost his reason at cleven. Deslandes,
in his work on onanism, speaks of a confirmed mastur-
bator at eighteen months!

The author was some years since consulted in a case
of inveterate priapism in a child four years of age.
The erethism had continued during four or five entire
days. The urine was voided drop by drop, and the
paroxysms of suffering were at intervals extreme. We
found the little patient surrounded by ladies and “ wise”
old women, who were actually endeavoring to reduce
the organ by immodest procedures. The secret was
found to consist wholly in the presence of a minute
calculus which had lodged in the urethra, and which
being removed the erethism subsided; but a well-nigh
fatal lesson had been imparted through the insane
attempts at relief.

“A young man from Montpelier,” (we translate from

Tissot,) “a student of medicine, died from excess of
. SATAN IN SOCIETY. 95

 

Case of Onanism Commenced at the Age of Ten.

 

this kind of debauch. The idea of his crime so agitated
his mind that he died in a kind of despair, believing
that he saw hell open at his side to receive him. A
child of this city, six or seven years of age, instructed,
as I believe, by a female servant, polluted himself so
ofter that the slow fever which resulted very soon ter-
minated fatally. His fury for this act was so great that
it could not be prevented, even in the last days of his
life. When told that he was hastening his death, he
consoled himself by saying that he would go the sooner
to find his father, who died some months before.”

Here is the narration of a subject who became a mas-
turbator a little later:

“JT knew nothing of the vice of onanism until the age
of ten years, when one of my companions, at the col-
lege where I was placed, instructed me. I could not
tell you the number of times that I practiced it to the
age of fifteen; then only my eyes were opened to the
whole enormity cf my fault. I am now eighteen, but
though for three years I have not fallen again, I am no
less afflicted with fiequent pollutions, which occur in
spite of myself, during five or six nights in succession.
I am never permitted to enjoy tranquil repose; the

whole day Iam sad. I have four times changed my
96 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Terrible Case. Combining all the Miseries and Baseness

 

school, and every-where I have seen this kind of liber-
tinism carried to excess. Where I terminated my
studies, we assembled often in parties of twelve or fif-
teen to indulge this fine practice. It is doubtless due
to my temperament that I have outlived nearly all my
comrades; save one, whom I meet quite often, and who
leads a very wretched life, all have died in the most
frightful torments.”

The following case combines all the miseries and all
the turpitude of this terrible evil in the person of one
individual :

“L. D., a watchmaker, had been virtuous and healthy
until the age of seventeen., At that time he delivered
himself to masturbation which he repeated three times
a day, and the consummation of the act was always
preceded and accompanied by a slight loss of conscious-
ness, and a convulsive movement of the extensor mus-
cles of the head, which was forcibly thrown back, while
the neck became extraordinarily swollen. In less than
one year he began to experience great weakness after
each act. This warning was not sufficient to drive him
from the danger. His soul, already wholly delivered to
this infamy, was no longer capable of other ideas, and

the repetition of the crime became every day more
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 97

 

Case of L. D. continued.

 

frequent, until he found himself’ in a condition which led
him to be apprehensive of death. Wise too late, the
evil had made such progress that he could not be cured,
and the genital organs became so irritable and so feeble
that there was no longer required the act to produce
seminal emission. . . . The spasm which formerly
occurred only at the consummation of the act and ceased
at the same time, had become habitual, and often seized
him without apparent cause, and in so violent a fashion
that during the whole time of the paroxysm, which
sometimes lasted fifteen hours and never less than eight,

he experienced in the back of the neck such violent pains
that he commonly raised, not cries merely, but howls,
and it was impossible for him, during all this time, to
swallow either liquids or solids. His voice became
hoarse, but I have not remarked that it was more so
during the paroxysms. He lost entirely his strength.
Obliged to abandon his profession, incapable of any
thing, overwhelmed with misery, he languished almost
without succor during several months, so much the more
to be pitied that a trace of memory which had nearly
vanished, only served to recall to him incessantly the
causes of his misfortune, and to augment all the horror

of his remorse. I learned his condition; I visited him;
9
98 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Loathsome condition of Mind and Body.

 

I found less a living bemg than a corpse groaning upon
the straw; emaciated, pale, filthy, exhaling an infectious
odor; almost incapable of any movement. He lost
often a pale and watery blood by the nose; a constant
slime flowed from the mouth ; attacked with diarrhea, he
rendered his excrements in his bed without knowledge
of the fact; the spermatic flux wa continual; bleared,
troubled, and dull, he had no longer the faculty of mo-
tion; the pulse was extremely small and rapid; the
respiration very labored; the emaciation excessive, ex-
cept at the feet, which commenced to be dropsical. The
disorder of mind was not less. Without memory; inca-
pable of connecting two phrases; without reflection;
without inquietude as to his fate; with no other
sentiment than that of pain, which returned with all
the accessions at least every three days; a being far
below the brute; a spectacle of which it is impossible
to conceive the horror; one would with difficulty recog-
nize that he had formerly belonged to the human spe-
cies. I succeeded promptly, by the aid of remedies, in
controlling those violent spasmodic accessions which
only recalled him so cruelly to consciousness by the
pains. Content to have relieved him in this respect, I

discontinued remedies which could not ameliorate his
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 99

 

Physical Symptoms and condition of Masturbator.

 

condition. He died at the end of some weeks, (June
17, 1857,) dropsical from head to foot.” (Onanisme,
par Tissot.)

At the first glance the onanist presents an aspect of
languor, weakness, and thinness. The countenance is
pale, sunken, flabby, often leaden, or more or less livid,
with a dark circle around the sunken eyes, which are
dull, and lowered or averted. A sad, shameful, spirit-
less physiognomy. The voice is feeble and hoarse;
there are dry cough, oppression, panting, and fatigue
on the least exertion; palpitations; obscured ‘vision;
dizziness, tremulousness, painful cramps; convulsive
movements like epilepsy; pains in the limbs, or at the
back of the head, in the spine, breast, or stomach;
great weakness in the back; sometimes lethargy; at
other times slow, hectic, consumptive fever; digestive
derangements; nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, or
progressive emaciation. Sometimes the body is bent,
and often there are all the appearances of pulmonary
consumption, or the characteristics of decrepitude joined
to the habits and pretensions of youth.

Such is the physical degradation of the masturbator.
It is only, however, in habitual and confirmed onanists

that such grave alterations are manifest, nor, indeed, in
100 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Moral Degradation even Worse.

 

most cases that all the evils described are present.
Enough has been said, however, to enable any intelli-
gent observer to recognize the confirmed onanist. Oc-
casional offenders manifest the same characteristics im
different degrees, and it would be difficult for even such to
escape the practiced eye of the physician. Perhaps the
most constant and invariable, as well as earliest signs,
are the downcast, averted glance, and the disposition to
solitude.

But while the physical symptoms are so grave, the
moral degradation goes even further. Prominent char-
acteristics are, loss of memory and intelligence, morose
and unequal disposition, aversion, or indifference to
legitimate pleasures and sports, mental abstractions,
stupid stolidity, etc. A distinguished German phy-
sician, Gottlieb Wogel, gives the following truthful
picture :

“The masturbator gradually loses his moral faculties ;
he: acquires a dull, silly, listless, embarrassed, sad,
effeminate exterior. He becomes indolent; averse to
and incapable of all intellectual exertion ; all presence
of mind deserts him; he is discountenanced, troubled,
inquiet whenever he finds himself in company; he is

taken by surprise and even alarmed if required simply
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 101

 

Picture Drawn by a German Physician.

 

to reply to a child’s question; his feeble soul succumbs
to the lightest task; his memory daily losing more and
more, he is unable to comprehend the most common
things, or to connect the simplest ideas; the greatest
means and the most sublime talents are soon exhausted ;
previously acquired knowledge is forgotten; the most
exquisite intelligence becomes naught, and no longer
bears fruit ; all the vivacity, all the pride, all the qual-
ities of the spirit by which these unfortunates formerly
subjugated or attracted their equals,abandon them, and
leave them no longer aught but contempt; the power
of the imagination is at an end for them; pleasure no
longer fawns upon them, but in revenge, all that is
trouble and misfortune in the world seems their portion.
Inquietude, dismay, fear, which are their only affections,
banish every agreeable sensation from their minds. The
last crisis of melancholy and the most frightful sugges-
tions of despair commonly end in hastening the death
of these unfortunates, or else they fall into complete
apathy, and, sunken below those brutes which have ‘the
least instinct, they retain only the figure of their race.
It even frequently happens that the most complete folly
and frenzy are manifest from the first.”

According to Dr. Franck, “ Masturbators arc not only
102 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Different Degrees of Punishment.

7

?

a charge upon society, but are even dangerous,” and

this celebrated physician exhorts governments to exer-
cise over them the most active supervision. Says
Dr. Debreyne:

“Consider now ‘this imbruted and degraded being;
hehold him bent under the weight of crime and infamy,
dragging in darkness a remnant of material and animal
life. Unfortunate! He has sinned against Ged, against
nature, and against himself. He has violated the laws
of the Creator; has disfigured the image of God in
his own person, and has changed it into that of the
beast, imago bestic. He is even sunken below the
brute, and, like him, looks only upon the ground. TIlis
dull and stupid glance can no longer raise itself toward
Heaven; he no longer dares lift his miserable brow, al-
ready stamped with the seal of reprobation ; he descends
little by little into death, and a last convulsive crisis
comes at length, violently to close this strange and hor-
rible drama.”

As we have said of the physical, so also can we say
of the moral punishment of the masturbator. Not all
offenders are visited so severely as above described.
Perhaps even a small proportion of the whole number

die in this manner; yet, in this comparatively small
*

SATAN IN SOCIETY, 103

 

Dangers to Reformed Onanists,

 

minority, those who persist in the practice will sooner or
later surely be included. Let no one delude himself
with the false assumption that he can be exempt from
this universal law. There can be no possible exemption !
Those who persist will surely die the death most horri-
ble of all deaths; and those who practice the most lim-
ited and occasional acts of onanism will surely be pun-
ished in proportion to their crimes; while the very
individuals who seem to escape, are those who most
surely carry the punishment for the remainder of their
lives, never live to attain old age, and most frequently
fall victims to some grave chronic discase, the germs
of which they owe to this detestable vice. Or an acute
malady, which they resist far less readily than others,
cuts the thread of their existence in the prime of their
manhood.

The reformed onanist is the earliest and surest prey
of severe epidemics, as cholera, yellow fever, ctc., by

reason of his bad antecedents, and the detcriorated

condition of his constitution.

Lest we be accused of exaggerating the dangers of
onanism, we refer, in addition to the authorities already
quoted, to the following, from the father of medicine to

the most eminent physicians of our time, all of whom
104 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Fearful Prevalence of this Vice in Boarding-Schools.

 

sustain every word we have uttered concerning the horri-
ble consequences of this crime: Hippocrates, (De Mor-
bis, lib. ii, c. 49,) Areteus, (De Signis et caus. dius.
morb. lib. ii, c. 5,) Lomnius, (Comment de Sanit. tuend,
p- m., 37,) Boerhaave, (Instit., p. 776,) Hoffinan, (Con-
sult.,) Ludwig, (Instit. physiol.,) Kloekhof, (De morb.
anim. ab. infir. med. cereb.,) Levis, (A Practical Essay
upon Tabes Dorsalis,) and very many others. ~

The author has had patients from many boarding-
schools, and has learned facts which convince him that
in all of them masturbation is practiced to a fearful and
most injurious extent. In saying all, he means literally
all without a single exception. If there exist a single
exception, he has yet, by the most diligent and search-
ing inquiry, to ascertain the fact. If there exist a
single exception, it must be a boarding-school of angels.

It was the case in every boarding-school to which we
ourself were sent as a boy, and in our whole’ profes-
sional career we have never lost an opportunity of sat-
isfying ourself upon the question of its continued exist-
ence. In conversation with professors and teachers of
both sexes, from the university to the village school,
these horrible apprehensions have been more than con-

firmed. Let those who read these pages reflect upon
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 105

 

Sudden Deterioration of Youthful Prodigies.

 

the numberless instances, which must have come within
the observation of all medical or lay observers, of
youths who stood high in their classes, and ranked quite
as intellectual prodigies up to or a little beyond the age
of puberty, say from fourteen upward—who suddenly,
without obvious cause, became stupid as dunces, or los-
ing their vivacity, seemed to fail rapidly in intelligence,
and to disappoint the high hopes which had been enter-
tained of them. Ninety-nine per cent. of these exam-

ples are cases in point.
106 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Number of Female Masturbators Enormous.

IV.
FEMALE MASTURBATION.

LAS, that such a term is possible! , that it were

as infrequent as it is monstrous, and that no stern
necessity compelled us to make the startling disclosures
which this Chapter must contain! We beseech, in ad-
vance, that every young creature into whose hands this
book may chance to fall, if she be yet pure and inno-
cent, will at least pass over this Chapter, that she may
still believe in the general chastity of her sex; that she
may not know the depths of degradation into which it
is possible to fall. We concede that only a wide-spread
existence of the crime could justify this public descrip-
tion of its consequences. We believe that a smaller
proportion of girls than of boys are addicted to it, but
the number is nevertheless enormous, and the dangers
are all the greater, that their very existence is so gen-

erally ignored. Even tolerable physicians seem oblivious
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 107

 

Young Ladies’ Schools the Arena.

 

of its prevalence, and blindly go on in the vain endeavor
to heal maladies of the origin of which they are igno-
rant, and of which the causes are in perpetual operation.

Beyond all dispute the crime exists, and incontestably
the female boarding-school is the arena wherein it is
most widely acquired and practiced! We translate the
following from an acknowledged high medical authority,
the “ Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales :”

“Naturally more timid and more sccret than boys,
the effects of their reunion, although very fatal, are Jess
than in the latter. At the same time a culpable negli-
gence in the boarding-schools of ‘young ladies,’ too
frequently allows to be introduced there the disorders
of masturbation. This practice is dissembled from tlic
impenctrative or careless eyes of the teacher under
the guise of friendship, which is carried, in a great num-
ber of cases, to a scandalous extent. The most intimate
liaisons are formed under this specious pretext; the
same bed often receives the two friends.

“We have seen letters from these young persons to
each other, scarcely eleven or twelve years of age, the
burning and passionate expressions of which made us
shudder. The clandestine reading of certain books, in

which abject authors have traced, in the liveliest colors,
108 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Distinguished Frenchman’s Caution.

 

the deplorable deviations of the senses, is another no
less fatal circumstance which hastens the corruption of
girls. One can affirm that this reading of romances,
which so easily becomes the object of a veritable pas-
sion with young persons, is to-day one of the most
active causes of their depravation.”

With them, as with boys, the genital organs may
be constitutionally endowed with excessive predominance
of action, which masters all the affections, all the move-
ments of the economy, and causes them to titillate
incessantly that part of those organs which is the seat
of the keenest sensibility. Very little girls are often
thus borne along, by a kind of instinct, to commit
masturbation. The famous Dr. Deslandes makes the
astounding statement, which can only be true of the
French nation, that “a great number of little girls,
and the majority of adolescents, coummit this crime!”

Human nature, however, is much the same the world
over, and a habit so easily acquired and practiced, so
little suspected, or entirely ignored, and which, for
these and certain physical reasons, girls are even more
liable to contract than boys, may well excite astonish-
ment and alarm, and render the distinguished French-

man’s caution equally appropriate here: “There is no
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 109

 

Origin of Many of the Diseases of Unmarried Women.

 

young girl who should not be considered as already
addicted to or liable to become addicted to this habit.”
It is often very difficult—almost impossible, in fact—
for the physician to ascertain the origin of many of
the diseases of unmarried women which he is called
upon to treat, and, if the cause be perpetually in oper-
ation, he will prescribe with fruitless results. The
broken health, the prostration, the great debility, the
remarkable derangements of the gastric and uterine
functions, for which the physician is consulted, too
often have this origin, and when the cause is inves-
tigated the subject alleges great exertions, intense
trouble, unhappiness, etc., but is silent as to the real
cause, which, perhaps, after all, she does not herself
associate with her maladies. The utmost penetration
of the physician can only cause him to suspect the
truth, but a question skillfully put will generally re-
veal all.

One of the most celebrated surgeons in the world
has related the following case: “A young girl of ten
or twelve years, sole heiress of a considerable fortune,
was unsuccessfully treated by the most skillful physi-
cians of Paris. At length the physician who has fur-

nished this narration was summoned. He was not more
110 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

History of a Young Heiress of Ten or ‘I'welve Years.

 

fortunate than his colleagues. Unable to explain this
general failure to relieve, and the constantly increasing
debility of the patient, he imparted to the mother his
suspicions of the cause of all these accidents that noth-
ing subducd. The mother, exceedingly astonished and
almost indignant at an assertion which appeared to her
so rash, earnestly maintained that the thing was impos-
sible, as the child had always been under her own eye,
or confided to a governess incapable of teaching her
evil. This governess was an old woman who had reared
the mother, and who had never excited her suspicions
in any respect. The physician, however, caused the
child to be separated from both mother and governess.
She was sent to her aunt in the country, in order the
better to watch her in this intentional isolation. This
aunt, taking advantage of the ascendency which she
had obtained over the girl’s mind, subjected her to a
secret interrogation. She was moved, embarrassed, dis-
countenanced, but confessed nothing. Her cmbarrass-
ment had already betrayed her, and from that moment,
in the estimation of the aunt, her fault was assured.
Soon the doctor arrived, who directed against the poor
child a last and vigorous attack. ‘Mademoiselle,’ said

he, with a tone of authority, certainty, and conviction,
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 111

 

An old Governess Satan’s Agent in the Affair.

 

‘the solemn moment has arrived to tell us here the
truth, and nothing but the truth. Your aunt and I
now understand the whole matter. It only remains to
inform us who taught you this detestable habit, which
has totally ruined your health, and how long since this
fatal secret was revealed to you, for it certainly did
not originate with yourself.” At this severe and unex-
pected language the young girl was much affected.
Being urged, she hesitated, looked at her aunt, and
avowed all. It was her old governess who had taught
her masturbation. The aid of medicine proved power-
less to restore the health which she had lost.”

After this, trust women, trust nurses, trust govern-
esses, believe mothers! Moltte confidere in mulieribus.
The symptoms which enable us to recognize or suspect
this crime are the following: A general condition of
languor, weakness, and loss of flesh; the absence of
freshness and beauty, of color from the complexion,
of the vermilion from the lips, and whiteness from the
teeth, which are replaced by a pale, lean, puffy, flabby,
livid physiognomy; a bluish circle around the eyes,
which are sunken, dull, and spiritless; a sad expres-
sion, dry cough, oppression and panting on the least

exertion, the appearance of incipient consumption. The
112 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Mental and Moral Symptoms.

 

menstrual periods often exist, at least, in the com-
mencement, and so the alteration in health can not
be attributed to their derangement or suppression. It
is not uncommon to see the shape impaired, or even
deformed.

The moral symptoms are similar to those of the
opposite sex. They are sadness or melancholy, soli-
tude or indifference, an aversion to legitimate pleas-
ures, and a host of other characteristics common to
the two sexes. The condition called “nymphomania”
sometimes ensues, in which the most timid girl is trans-
formed into a termagant, and the most delicate modesty
to a furious audacity which even the effrontery of pros-
titution does not approach.

Let it not be supposed that the absence of the semi-
nal secretion in woman,renders this vice less destructive
than in man. Ubi irritatio bi fluxus (where there is
irritation there is increased ‘secretion,) is a medical
maxim, and the increase of the proper secretions of
the female organs under habitual irritation,is enormous
and extremely debilitating. Witness the sad examples
of leucorrhoeal discharge, (called the “whites,”) now
so common as to be well-nigh the rule rather than the

exception.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 113

 

Onanism a Solitary, also a Contagious, Vice.

 

Deslandes says: “I have reason to believe, from a
great number of facts presented to me in practice, that
of every twenty cases of leucorrhea, (‘whites,’) or of
inflammation of the vulva or vagina in children and
young girls, there are at least fifteen or eighteen which
result from masturbation!” And again: “Repeated
admissions have also convinced me that leucorrhea and
chronic inflammation of the womb, so common with the
women of our cities, most frequently owe their origin
to former, and sometimes to recent, excesses of this
nature !”’

We have termed onanism a solitary vice, and nothing
is more just. It has also been termed a contagious
Vice, and nothing is more true. The example of a
single masturbator never fails to bear its fruit. At
first the novelty, and then the pleasure, explains this
contagiousness. This furnishes the explanation for its
frequency in establishments where a great number of
young subjects are gathered together—schools, boarding-
houses, colleges; in short, all places where education is
in common—and great care, watchfulness, and super-
vision should be, and to a certain extent are exercised,
in order that this horrible evil may not entirely depop-

ulate these establishments.
10
114 SATAN IN SOCIETY,

 

Double Onanism. Elusband and Wife alike Guilty.

 

The conjugal couch itself is not always exempt!
“We have been consulted in a case of sterility,” says
Dr. Rauland, “by a woman who made to us the most
surprising avowal. Her husband, a confirmed mastur-
bator, had not lost this practice on contracting marriage.
She herself had not delayed to follow his example, and
together, on each side, they indulged in the solitary
pleasures which should have been enjoyed in common.
The desire of having children sometimes brought them
together, but these unfortunate beings did not suspect
that it was precisely their shameful practice which was
the most insurmountable obstacle to the realization of
their wishes. Thanks to this desire, which, among other
motives, had been excited by considerations of fortune,
we were enabled to extirpate this double onanism from
a couch where it should never have been able to pene-
trate, and to return two persons to-the sole enjoyments
which morality, medicine, and religion could permit.”

There is among children a sort of instinct, which
leads them to hide and to dissimulate their maneuvers
before even they have found them to be illicit and
shameful. The art with which they elude watchfulness
and evade questions is often inconceivable. They can

not be too strongly suspected. The nature of the
e

SATAN IN SOCIETY. *115

 

Suspicious Circumstances Requiring Investigation.

 

habits of a young person should awaken suspicion; for
masturbation leads them to solitude. Have an eye,
then, upon those who prefer darkness and solitude; who
remain long alone without being able to give good rea- |
sons for this isolation. Let vigilance attach itself prin-
cipally to the moments which follow the retirement to
bed, and those which precede the rising. It is then
especially that the masturbator may be surprised in the
act. Her hands are never outside the bed, and gener-
ally she prefers to hide her head under the coverlet. She
has scarcely gone to bed ere she appears plunged in a
profound sleep. This circumstance, which to a practiced
observer is always suspicious, is one of those which
most frequently contributes to the cause, or to nourish
the false security of parents. The affectation that the
young person carries into her pretended sleep, the
marked exaggeration with which she pretends to sleep,
may often serve to betray her. Often, when suddenly
approached, she may be seen to blush, and to be cov-
ered with perspiration unaccounted for by the tempera-
ture of the room, the warmth of the covering, or any
other observable cause. The breathing is at the same
time more precipitate, the pulse more developed, harder,

and quicker, the blood-vessels fuller, and the heat greater
4
116 SATAN IN SOCIETY,

 

a
Avoid not the Subject through False Delicacy.

 

than in the natural condition. There is, in short, that
sort of fever which ordinarily accompanies the venereal
act.

We could give facts almost without number in our
own immediate experience, and in reported cases, to
show the prevalence and ‘destructive nature of this
vice among girls in our own country, but we forbear;
the subject is painful and revolting even to contemplate.
We believe that we have said enough to terrify parents
into the needful precautions against it. If so much has
been accomplished our object is fully realized. We
remark, however, in conclusion, that it is not sufficient
to use merely ordinary precautions of a judicious watch-
fulness; direct and skillful interrogation must be from
time to time employed, at least in every suspected case.
The subject should never be avoided through false deli-
cacy, and such lessons should be imparted on the dread-
ful consequences of the habit,as shall effectually deter
the perpetrators from persisting in it. It were far bet-
ter to acquaint even pure-minded and perfectly inno-
cent girls with the existence of such a vice, while
teaching them its horrible consequences, than, through a
false modesty or mistaken motives of delicacy, to fail

in imparting the requisite information in a single case.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 117

 

The Right of Children to be Born.

 

Vv.
THE SACRED RIGHTS OF OFFSPRING.

HILDREN have the right to be born! Alas, that
this God-given privilege should ever be called in
question! That it is so, however, the testimony of
modern physicians, the daily records of the newspapers,
the fulminations from the pulpit, the remonstrances of
philanthropists, and the forebodings of philosophers
abundantly prove.

If we examine the history of abortion, we shall find
that this crime, now so commonly practiced as to de-
mand the attention it is receiving from moralists, is of
extremely ancient origin, having existed among pagan
nations from the earliest times; that the influence of
Christianity has ever been to banish the practice, and
that in proportion as Christianity becomes weakened or
destroyed, the fearful evil in question re-appears and

extends.
118 “SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Abortion a Monstrous Heresy.

 

The Roman women did not scruple to disembarrass
themselves of a pregnancy which might interfere with
their convenience or pleasure, until Ulpian repressed
the practice by attaching to it the most severe penalties.
Plato and Aristotle advocated it for the avowed purpose
of preventing excessive population, and taught that
the child only acquires a soul at the moment of mature
birth; hence, that the embryo not possessing anima-
tion, its sacrifice is not murder. This monstrous heresy
against religion, science, and common sense is not with-
out its imitators in our own time. Modern sophists
pretend that before a certain period of intra-uterine ex-
istence, which they term “animation,” the embryo has
neither life nor soul; that, consequently, its destruction
before that period is an evil, perhaps, but, in certain
cases, is lawful.

Witness the followin letter, received by the author
not many months ago, from a clergyman of great influ-
ence in the community where he resides—a gentleman
of rare intellectual culture, and, withal, a shining light
in his particular sect. The letter and our reply are
given verbatim, the omissions being only such as are

necessary to avoid the possibility of exposure:
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 119

 

Letter from an Influential Clergyman.

 

“Dear Sir,—Since my wife returned home she has
not been at all well; she has seemed very much fa-
tigued, etc. This morning, after rising, she was taken
with a severe fit of vomiting. Is not this one of the
symptonis attendant upon a certain condition? We
are both somewhat alarmed about the matter, and we
have further firmly decided that we must have no fur-

ther increase of family at present. If Mrs. is in

 

such a condition, it would be entirely proper now, before
life or animation has commenced, that something be
done to bring on the regular periods. We are both
very anxious it should be done, and in her present con-
dition there would be nothing at all wrong. But know-
ing her, and also our general circumstances, as I do, it
seems to me a Christian duty. Had life commenced
the case would be different. She may not be in this
much dreaded condition, however; if not, then what does
the morning nausea denote? Please drop me a line,
- ». . . and greatly oblige,

“Yours truly, — ——_.

We replied immediately to this letter. It certainly

merited attention! We reproduce our reply here, as
120 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Reply of the Author.

 

indicating, in a familiar manner, our views on this

subject:

“REVEREND Sir,—Yours of —— is received. It is
impossible to decide at the present stage whether your
wife is pregnant or not. The morning sickness, even
if often repeated, would be very far from proof, be-
cause in nearly all uterine ailments the same sympa-
thetic phenomena as occur in pregnancy may exist—
and from the same general cause, uterine irritation. In
the case of intestinal worms, for example, the same rule
obtains. The symptoms proceed from intestinal irrita-
tion, but this irritation may be caused by other things
than worms; so we are never sure till we have physical
proof. Thus the question of pregnancy in your wife’s
case, can not be decided until sufficient time has elapsed
to furnish the necessary physical signs. Independently
of all moral considerations, to assume that she is preg-
nant, and to endeavor to overcome that condition, would,
in case the assumption were wrong, be attended with
great risk to her life. So, in any event, the necessity
for waiting is inexorable. Of this, however, I am cer-
tain: she has an uterine affection entirely independent

of pregnancy, capable of producing all the symptoms'she
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 121

 

Child has Being and Soul from moment of Conception.

 

has yet manifested. You seem to invite me to a dis-
cussion of another branch of the subject, and from our
relative positions I can not well avoid accepting your
challenge. You are a teacher, to be sure, and so am I;
but you are a teacher of religion, I, of science. It be-
longs to each of us to speak oracularly in his proper
sphere, but in this instance the two are mutually de-
pendent; you must base your teachings upon the clearly
determined facts of science, for true science and true
religion can never conflict. Now, both declare posi-
tively that the child in the womb, from the very mo-
ment of conception, has being and soul, and conse-
quently ‘life or animation.’ I presume you intend by
this expression, ‘life or animation,’ the moment when
it could maintain existence independently of the mother,
or ‘viability,’ as we term it; but, in a certain sense,
it is still dependent on the mother after ‘viability ;
for, although capable of breathing ‘on its own account,’
it would perish but for the mother’s care and sustenance.
Why not, then, decide that it might be a ‘ Christian
duty’ to murder the infant six months or a year after
birth, or, for that matter, at any time before it is old
enough to defend itself? Circumstances of mother or

father might be pleaded in justification. Seriously,
11
122 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

As much your Christian Duty to Murder your Living Child.

neither you nor I can say when a being has not ‘life
or animation’ in the sense you probably intend; and if
we could determine the exact moment it-would not alter
the case in the least. The civil law makes some dis-*
crimination between ‘ viability’ and ‘non-viability ;? but
science is loudly demanding an obliteration of the ab-
surd distinction, and Religion adds her powerful voice.
By ‘religion’ I mean simply, in this connection, the
common belief of all Christendom, irrespective of sect
or creed. Suppose, sir, you were to imagine that the
child, whose advent you so much dread, would be in all
respects the superior of the one you now possess, that
your love and affection for it would exceed by a hun-
dred-fold that which you entertain for the present; of
course you would naturally wish to preserve it, and
would take every means in your power to avert the
catastrophe which, ¢¢ so happens, you now desire. But
you must not have two children, knowing your ‘ gen-
eral circumstances,’ as ‘you do;’ it would then become
your ‘Christian duty’ to murder your present child, and
let the other come. In some respects the morale would
be in favor of the latter course, inasmuch as it would
be so much more easily performed—a little strychnine
would do it!—and no danger to life or health would
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 123

 

Any Physician undertaking it a Monster and Scoundrel.

 

attach to the mother. In the one case you destroy one
life and jeopard a second; in the other, you destroy
but one life, and hazard nothing beyond it—that is, im
this world. Come, Reverend sir, I will as soon help
you do the one as the other—suppose we try it? Cer-
tainly you can as well persuade me of my ‘Christian
duty’ in the one case as in the other. It does not alter
the case that physicians can be found ready to undertake
your ‘little affair.” Any physician who would undertake
it is a monster and a scoundrel, and would murder you
and your entire family as readily, ‘for a consideration,’
provided the chances of detection were equal. By the
Almighty God who rules in the Heaven, I conjure you
do not this thing! nay, do not even contemplate it!
“Now, let us take the lower view, and regard the
question as one of expediency merely. There is no
medicine known to the profession which possesses the
specific property of inducing miscarriage; many will
do it in some cases, but only secondarily; that is, in
proportion as they shatter the constitution, ruin the
health, and produce a state of the system which renders
it incompetent, through debility, to sustain pregnancy.
Medicines, then, are out of the question if a man loves

his wife, and values her health or her happiness. There
124 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Dangers to the Mother incidental to Abortion.

 

remains the mechanical method, in which various instru
ments are used, according to the taste of the operator.
All of these are more or less dangerous in themselves,
and none of them can avert the dangers incidental to
abortion. These are numerous, and to one who knows
them, frightful. I will enumerate a few:

“First, flooding. She may flood to death before your
very eyes, and many cases do happen altogether be-
yond the control of the most skillful practitioners.

“Second, inflammations. Escaping the dangers of
flooding, inflammation may attack the womb, or its
appendages, or the surrounding organs, and she may
die in horrid delirium.

“Third, insanity. By reflex action the brain not un-
frequently takes on disease, and in place of a prattling
baby, you may be saddled for the remainder of your
life with a mad woman.

“Fourth, barrenness—a most common result. ‘Cir-
cumstances’ may change; it may seem the most de-
sirable thing in the world that your family should
‘increase,’ but violated nature defies you. Pregnancy
occurs often enough, but the womb gives up its contents
at precisely the same term as you forced it to do be

fore, and no art can come to your relief.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 125

 

Result of the Correspondence.

 

“Fifth, ‘female weaknesses.’ The long train of sad
and tedious phenomena indicated by this popular term, is
absolutely multifarious—congestions, ulceration, and pro-
lapsus uteri, diseases of the bladder, urethra, and rec-
tum, incontinence of urine, spinal irritation, sciatica, and
other things, of which the greatest misfortune is that
they do not kill, but simply render life insupportable.
Now, Reverend sir, I have hastily and imperfectly scrib-
bled off some of the prominent objections to your in-
tended course. Pardon me if I have seemed severe. I
have taken the trouble for two reasons; first, to save
the life of a human being, and, second, to rescue you,
but above all your excellent wife, from the commission
of a sin of damnation.

“Respectfully, etc., — —.

It is due to these parties to mention that the argu-
ments set forth in our response, had the full effect
intended, and that they now rejoice in the possession of
the mature product of that pregnancy—a living refuta-
tion of the assertion that man can ever usurp the func-
tions of Divine Providence. The health of the mother
has been fully restored through the very process which,

in the fallible judgment of man, appeared most calcu-
126 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Several Illustrative Cases.

 

lated to destroy it. Were this the place, or did space
permit, we could adduce many remarkable facts within
our own observation illustrative of this truth. <A few
must suffice:

A lady who, in a former pregnancy, had suffered so
intensely from a serious complication of diseases that
her life was long despaired of, and that in the opinion
of the author, confirmed by that of several distinguished
physicians, she could never hope to survive another
pregnancy, nevertheless again became pregnant, and by
the concurrent advice of the regular number of physi-
cians submitted to the operation for abortion. She
subsequently passed successfully through another term
of pregnancy, and now rejoices in the possession of
excellent health and a splendid daughter.

Another, who, in view of an anticipated Summer
tour, vainly sought to obtain relief through us, from
an inconvenient pregnancy, and succeeded in “ having
it done for her” by an infernal rascal, laid helpless and
suffering through the weary months of the Spring and
Summer, losing not only her baby and her journey, but
her health, and all that makes life endurable.

A third had “children enough,” rebelled at the pros-

pect of an acquisition, tried every known means to
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 127

 

Cases Continued. Enormous Prevalence of Child-Murder,

 

disembarrass herself of the unwelcome incumbent—
happily without success—and, a few days before the
birth of a beautiful boy, had to mourn the loss of her
only son, killed, in the midst of exuberant health, by a
most horrible accident.

A fourth, left penniless by the death of her husband,
was well-nigh persuaded by a friendly though misguided
acquaintance—one, alas, conspicuous for many Chris-
tian virtues, and a veritable authority in her Church—
to murder the child, which, to-day, is the prop and
support of her declining years.

A fifth had “too many children already.” The son
whose existence she was barely dissuaded from abolishing
remains, the sole survivor of eight brothers and sisters,
able and happy in supporting his aged and indigent
parents throughout the last years of their afflicted life.

Numberless similar instances are within the knowl-
edge of physicians, and every practitioner of experience
could add some dozens to the list. Not all nor any of
the numerous essays and monographs, remonstrances
and addresses recently put forth on the subject,. convey
any thing like an adequate idea of the enormous prev-
alence of child-murder. Let the reader ask the physi-

cians of his acquaintance—they will verify our words.
128 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Thoughts which are not Pleasant.

 

It is not a pleasant thought that the very audience
before whom a preacher fulminates against the “great
crime of the nineteenth century,” is so far sprinkled
with the criminals that he feels the powerlessness of his
words. It is not a pleasant thought that the authors of
the numerous treatises referred to, know that a mighty
influence prevails in the culpable sentiment of the com-
munity, which shall neutralize their labors. It is not a
pleasant thought that the recognized motive for post-
poning to another year the consideration of certain
resolutions presented in the recent “Old School Pres-
byterian Assembly,’ was the fact that many of the
rich and powerful of that society would be hurt.*

*The resolutions referred to read as follows:

“Whereas, it is well known that unscriptural views of the mar-
riage relation are becoming prevalent in some parts of our land,
so that its obligations are disregarded by many, and separation of
husband and wife, and divorces for slight and unwarrantable rea-
sons, are becoming more frequent every year; and whereas, the
horrible crime of infanticide is also on the increase; and whereas,
the evils which these errors and crimes have already brought upon
the Church and country, and the worse evils which they threaten in
the future, make it imperative that the whole power of the ministry
and Church of Jesus Christ should be put forth in maintenance of
truth and virtue in regard to these things; therefore, be it

“Resolved, That we urge upon all the ministers of our Church the
duty of giving instruction to the people of their respective charges
as to the Scriptural doctrine concerning the marriage relation, and
that they warn them against joining in wedlock any who gain
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 129

 

Unscrupulous and Careless Practitioners Largely Responsible,

 

These thoughts are not pleasant—they are horrible!
Yet such is the actual state of morality in our land.
The startling truth is that in what is termed “good
society,” both in the city and country, it is the excep-
tion rather than the rule to find, among either ladies or
gentlemen, correct “Scriptural” ideas on this subject.

It must be admitted that the unscrupulous and the
careless or unthoughtful among the medical profession
are largely responsible for this wide-spread laxity of
sentiment; for, once persuade people that considerations

of health may justify the procurement of abortion, and

divorces upon other than Scriptural grounds; and we also exhort
Church associations to the exercise of due discipline in the case of
those members who may be guilty of violating the laws of Christ in
this particular.

“Resolved, That we regard the destruction by parents of their own
offspring before birth as a crime against God and against nature, and
that, as there are very many influences at work, in public and in
secret, to corrupt the minds of the people, until the frequency of
such murder is not longer sought to be concealed, we hereby warn
those who are guilty of these crimes that they can not inherit eter- ©
nal life, and that it is vile hypocrisy for such persons to remain in
connection with the visible Church of Christ; and we exhort those
who have been called to preach the Gospel, and all those who love
purity and the truth, and who would arrest the just judgment of
Almighty God from the state and nation, that they may be no longer
silent or tolerant of these things, but take a bold stand, that the
thought of impurity and cruelty may be stayed.”"—Proceedings of
the ‘Old School Presbyterian Assembly,” New York, May 22, 1869.
1380 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

An M. D. the Hero of Three Hundred Abortions.

 

they will easily devise other considerations, with them
equally powerful. Hence it follows that mere motives
of economy or of convenience have come to be so
commonly estimated as valid reasons for the act. The
strictest scientific (that is, medical) code requires only
the concurrent recommendation of two or three practi-
tioners to warrant the commission of an act which the
same science pronounces the taking of a human life.
Every physician can attest the ease with which such
opinions can be obtained—especially if the patient be
wealthy or powerful—and the frivolous pretexts on
which they are often sought.

A medical writer of some note, but at the time, of
exceedingly limited experience, published, in 1861, a
pamphlet, in which he declared himself the hero of three
hundred abortions. In speaking of a certain instru-
ment well adapted to the infamous purpose, he claims
to have used it “several times since this little work was
commenced, and always with success.” In a subsequent
work the same writer admits that he only found abor-
tion necessary to save the life of the mother in four
instances, thus publicly confessing that in an immense
number of cases he has performed the operation on

other grounds; and yet, in the face of all this self-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 131

 

His Status in Church and Fashionable Society.

 

accusation, several attempts at his expulsion from his
cowwty medical society have been defeated, and he is
accounted “a brother in good standing” of several
learned bodies, and holds an enviable position in a
fashionable Church and fashionable society. This ras-
cal walks unhung; for this the “‘ Medical Code” is pri-
marily responsible, and after that the “ ministers of the
Gospel,” the “worshipers” in the churches, the dwellers
in “south fronts.”

What physician can not recall cases in which the
most profoundly scientific men have committed the most
serious blunders in diagnosis? How often has it not
happened that the melancholy prediction that such or
such a woman could “never have a living child,” that
another must “die in labor,” that a third could “never
live through another pregnancy,” has been completely
falsified by subsequent events; and shall precious lives
be sacrificed on this mere fiat of feeble human judg-
ment, and on a questionable ruling? Suppose the opin-
ion were correct, who constituted man the arbiter of
human life? who appointed him to decide between the
relative merits and claims of human lives? Certainly
not Almighty God; and without His express sanction,

he must be a bold man who dares decide the issue—

-
1382 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Science and Nature Kindly Assist Each Other.

at least, supposing he believes in hell. The fact is,
and corporate medical bodies must one day assume this
ground, the distinction between “ criminal” and “ justi-
fiable” abortion is nonsense ; it is worse than nonsense,
at is itself criminal. Every pregnancy must be allowed
to progress to its full completion, or in well-determined
cases to the period of “viability,”* and the issue left in
the Hand which holds all our destinies. When this
course is adhered to, it is wonderful to witness the ex-
traordinary if not miraculous evolutions of nature to
rescue both lives from danger, or if this may not be,
the same beneficent nature kindly elects the maternal
life and permits the infant to perish the earliest. It is
here that science beautifully and legitimately comes to
her aid, determines with accuracy the exact moment
that the young life has taken its flight, and on the
instant proceeds boldly to an operation which, a moment
earlier, would have been murder. She has now only to
deal with the dead foetus, a “foreign body,” which it is
her duty to remove with the utmost possible dispatch.

We beg our fair country-women, those who would

*That is, when the child can live if prematurely born; deter-
mined to be possible after six months, when the operation for pre-
mature delivery may be justifiable under certain circumstances not
necessary to detail here.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 133

 

Appeal to our Fair Country-Women.

 

“walk in the knowledge and love of God,” to scorn the
propositions from whatever source they may come, to
destroy the lives of their unborn children, and to imitate
the example of the simple-minded but pious woman in
our own practice, who replied to five eminent physi-
cians, who assured her that she must assent to the de-
struction of her baby, or die: “What! murder my poor
bairn? No! God knows which life to take!’ In so
doing they may hope for the same reward which was
vouchsafed to her, a living child, and robust health to
nurture and work for it.

Again we assert* that Science can no more decree
the death of a being in the womb than out of the womb;
that she must limit herself to the discharge of her
whole duty in this view of the subject, and that in the
vast majority of cases lives will be saved where they
are now sacrificed; in other words, that were the rule
here advocated enforced by the combined influence of
the civil and medical codes, fewer maternal lives would
perish, and a far greater number of infantile lives would
be saved than under the present outrageous and unnat-

ural system, and also that the present toleration of
* This time not altogether without fear of contradiction, for men

of science are too often slow to trust implicitly in the God of nature,

or to change old and rooted beliefs.
134 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Decree of the Church. Custom of Pagan Nations

 

“justifiable” infanticide, as implied in the expression

“criminal abortion,”

opens the door for the most fre-
quent and frightful abuses of the “ privilege,” by leav-
ing the question of legality in particular instances, im-
possible to be determined. On the lowest view of the
subject, namely, that thousands of lives are sacrificed
under the plea of necessity where one “legal” necessity
exists, the decrees of law and of science should be
changed. ‘

" But what do we say? By solemn decrees the largest
body of Christians has declared and rigidly maintains
that the destruction of intra-uterine life, under any and
all circumstances, is murder; and as all the Christianity
we possess has descended through this channel, the
question should be regarded as settled without argument.
Away, then, with all quibbles and sophisms, and let the
laws of God be, in formal enactments at least, also the
laws of man!

Even in pagan nations, in all those with whom we
find destruction of offspring, the pregnancy is allowed
to progress and the child to be born, at least to discover
whether it were worth preserving. Thus, the North
American Indians, as well as the Peruvians, destroy all

children born with any deformity. On the coast of.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 135

 

© Infanticide common in Ancient Times.

 

Guinea, in Peru, and among the Hottentots the more
feeble of twins is sacrificed, and if of opposite sex, the
girl is killed in preference to the boy. At Madagascar,
New Granada, and-Greenland, if the woman dies during
or shortly after labor, her infant is commonly interred
alive with her. In case of infants born in poverty or
misery, the custom of killing them still prevails in
China, Australia, and Kamschatka, as in ancient
Athens. Certain Canadian tribes habitually sacrifice
the first-born. In Madagascar infants born on days
considered unlucky, are left to perish by exposure. In
the East Indies infants for whom. the astrologists pre-
dict a bad or unlucky fate, are destroyed.

In ancient times the practice of infanticide was
exceedingly common, and permitted by most nations.
Thus, among the Grecians the newly born infant was
laid at the feet of the father, who determined the ques-
tion of life or death. The Athenians especially were
addicted to this custom. Infanticide and exposure of
infants were common also among the ancient Persians,
Medes, Canaanites, Babylonians, and other Oriental
nations—even among the Chinese. The ancient Nor-
wegians put to death female infants, if that sex was

considered in excess in the family. At Athens female
186 SATAN‘ IN SOCIETY.

 

Let the Infant have the “ Benefit of a Doubt.”

 

children were very numerously sacrificed. Plato ana
Aristotle, in their Institutes, condemned to death by
exposure all infants who were feeble or judged unfit
to serve the republic. Spartan laws left to the magis-
trates the power of deciding whether the father should or
should not rear the infant, who, if regarded as feeble or
illy constituted, was thrown into an abyss. The ancient
Celts deposited the newly born upon a shield which
they set adrift upon the water, and regarded as the fruit
- of adultery those who were borne away by the current.

Though the crime of abortion was known and prac- ~
ticed among all people of antiquity, we observe that
the more commonly recognized mode of repressing too
rapid increase of population, was by infanticide pure
and simple; and, for ourselves, we must admit that, in
comparison with the ancient nations, our model republic
suffers in this respect. Even the outright murder of
the newly born infant seems to us a less hideous crime
than its destruction while yet in the womb; but the
destruction by exposure is incomparably less criminal,
for it gives the child a certain chance of being rescued,
while the ante-natal murder does not give the infant
even the “benefit of a doubt.”

It is humiliating to confess, as we stated in Chapter
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 187

 

Our Nation becoming Worse than the Pagans of Old.

first, that so boastful a nation as ours is becoming
worse even than the pagans of old, but we reiterate
the assertion with emphasis, and we challenge contradic-
tion. We hope to be able, in another chapter, to indi-

cate the obvious remedies for this state of affairs.
12
138 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Why the Earlier Scenes of the Drama are Elaborated and Exposed.

 

vi
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF MARRIAGE.

HE extraordinary delicacy of this subject is such as
to have hitherto absolutely prevented its discussion;
but when ministers publicly declaim from the pulpit
on the crime of ante-natal infanticide, and the press
teems with minute details of the last act of a daily
presented tragedy, the author thinks it time that the
drama should be faithfully elaborated and the earlier
scenes equally exposed, and with the same lawful
purpose—the prevention of crime, and of consequent °
domestic unhappiness. It is with this object in view |
that he ventures to penetrate the secrecy of the nup-
tial chamber, and discover there the very beginning
of evils so universally acknowledged, yet so little
understood.
From the preceding chapters the different relations

of man and woman on the night following the solemn
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 139

 

The Man and Woman just before Marriage.

 

ceremony which has,made them one flesh can be
comprehended at a glance. But few words, then, are
needed to explain these differences. Of course, what
we have to say regarding the woman supposes her to
be, at least physically, a virgin. The poor girl has
been for weeks an object of open commiseration and
sympathy on the part of all the old women and young
girls of her acquaintance. It is not so much what has}
been said as what has been mysteriously hinted by!
looks and actions more suggestive than words. She |
has been taught to regard this night as one of unspeak-
able, horror and torment; not alone her virginity, but
her utmost capacity for physical pain, are to be offered
a sacrifice to her love—too often of mere position.
These vague apprehensions, added to the fatigues of
preparation of her wedding outfit, have produced in
her the very acme of bodily and mental exhaustion;
she is jaded and worn out, but, above all, frightened.
The one thing in all this world of which she is least capa-
ble at this moment, is the faintest spark of sexual passion.
On the other hand, the man, in the majority of in-
- stances, has received his education for this occasion in
ways suggested in Chapter first, and often, alas! in the

brothel. He may be by nature kind, considerate, and
140 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Shrinking Timidity vs. Ungoverned Boldness.

 

loving, but the whole tenor of his thoughts and expe-
riences on this subject, are connected with violence—
indeed, dynamic consummation is, as he falsely believes,
the true idea of mercy. And with this disparity be-
tween the forces—shrinking timidity and ungoverned
boldness—the match anticipated by Julict, is won and
lost. Lost indeed for the poor creature left mangled
and terrified—nay, infinitely disgusted! Love, affec-
tion even, are well-nigh crushed out of the stricken
woman, whose mental ejaculation, “O, that I had not
married!” is the key-note to her whole after-existence.
And so, through the long hours of that dreary night,
she listens to the heavy respirations of her gross com-
panion, whose lightest movement causes her to shrink
with terror. She is fortunate, indeed, if her miseries
be not renewed ere she escape from the “bridal cham-
ber;” and the day which follows, filled as it is with
forebodings of the coming night, seems all too short for
the contemplations and the resolutions which crowd upon
her. Far from friendsand kindred, with no sympathizing
one to whom she can tell a word of her strange sorrow,
with him who is miscalled her protector, revealing, by
his every look and act, the bestial thoughts which fill

his breast, what wonder is it that twenty-four hours
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 141

 

The True Secret of the Fall of Married Women.

 

of marriage have been more prolific to her of loathing
than the whole previous courtship of love!

Again and again these nights of horror are repeated,
each, if possible, more hateful than the first, until her
monster rests from sheer exhaustion, and nature cica-
trizes the wounds of body and soul. The wounds re-
ceived by the latter are serious indeed. Passion is for-
ever killed, or, if capable of resuscitation, it is not at
the hands of him who destroyed it. It may be that
another can re-awaken the slumbering spark, and the
flame be all the wilder for the rights it has been denied.
If this do happen, alas for poor mortal frailty, if only
natural virtue sustain her! If this tremendous passion
be awakened, and the supernatural restraints of religion
do not protect her, opportunity and occasion are sure to
carry the day. The physical anguish has long since
ceased, but with it has also departed the capacity for
enjoyment, at least, we repeat, as regards the only
man legally qualified to awaken it. Herein lies the
true secret of-the fall of married women; and the few
revelations bear but a small proportion to the number
of such falls. Intrigue and adultery stalk boldly
through the land, and by the devil’s own cunning are
enabled to carry on their nefarious practices almost in
142 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

This Exposure too Wanton for Apology if Remediless.

 

the face and eyes of the public. The fable of “January
and May” almost finds its counterpart in every-day life
around us; and the ease with which those most inter-
ested, are hoodwinked, well-nigh rivals the credulity of
him whose sudden restoration to sight was so surprising
in its revelations.

Now if, in the opinion of the author, all this were
remediless, if we had nothing to offer beyond the sick-
ening exposure, too painful for the most studied narra-
tion, we should deem the foregoing tod wanton for apol-
ogy. Far indeed is it from our thought to declaim
against the virtue of woman. In his private life, the
author has ever proved himself her chivalric defender.
But we do contend that she is woman and not spirit,
and therefore human, and that, under the criminal,
beastly, and unnatural process described, the woman is
obliterated, and when she re-asserts herself, she has need
of something higher than mere human respect to sustain
and strengthen her. It is, in fact, as an apologist for
woman, as an advocate for the true rights of woman,
that we write this Chapter. The transformation from
woman to something less, has been effected by blinded,
misguided man, and the retransformation is accom-

plished by wily, villainous man. In both cases man is
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 143

 

The Fact of Child-bearing no Evidence of Enjoyment.

 

accountable, yet society holds him guiltless. Woman is
pure ard spotless, then, if not transformed, but, alas!
the transformations are numerous.

It does not invalidate our charge to say that most
married women bear children—one or more, according
to choice—and consequently must have derived recipro-
cal enjoyment. While we readily admit and claim for
our argument that a woman capable of bearing children
is also capable of the sexual instinct, the simple fact
remains that the majority perhaps—or certainly an
immense proportion—of those who have borne children
are innocent of the faintest ray of sexual pleasure.
Paradoxical as this may seem, it is an indisputable truth
that the physiology of conception does not comprehend
intense generation.

In the French hospitals the experiment has been suc-
cessfully tried, of impregnation of a woman while un-
conscious from chloroform; nay, inquisitive science has
gone even further, and by a process which ingenuity
could readily devise, has effected conception independent
of masculine contact. The fact of child-bearing, then,
is not evidence of enjoyment, but only of capacity for
enjoyment. Now, for a process of nature to be re-

peated year after year, in violation of her own intent
144 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Domestic Unhappiness in its Worst Form.

 

and purpose, wherein the pleasures and the pains are
respectively monopolized and avoided, wherein no reci-
procity of feeling nor of interest exists, wherein increas-
ing disgust involuntarily fastens on the one, and a brut-
ish indifference possesses the other, what is this but
domestic unhappiness in its worst, because most hidden
form? Although this branch of the marital relation
ought not to be considered as a prominent or leading
feature, but, indeed, as subordinate and altogether sec-
ondary to most of the pleasures of wedded life, how
can it be otherwise than prominent when it becomes a
constant cause of apprehension and of loathing? how
can its importance be overestimated if it be irresistibly
the theme of perpetual discord? What wonder if, un-
trammeled by religious scruples, the poor wife murders
that little life throbbing beneath her own heart, the very
inception of which is associated with so great unhappi-
ness !

The subject, then, owes its origin to the “honey-
moon ;”* but the honey-moon must be. Where, then, is
the remedy? We propose to speak very plainly on
this point, for it were of little service to portray the

disease unless we could also indicate the specific, which,

* A witty French author calls the honey-moon the moonshine.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 145

 

The Nuptial Chamber. Advice to the Husband.

 

under Providence, we hope to do clearly and unequivo-
cally. It were well if the treatment could begin with
the earliest manifestations of the malady, with the first
dawning of the indomitable passion in the boy, and fol-
low him through the dangerous years whose progress, in
a former Chapter, we have sufficiently traced. But as
this is impracticable, in the actual state of things, we
must take him as he is when he closes the door of the
nuptial chamber—mayhap a “reformed rake”—and say
to him, with all the import of a solemn warning, “ Hold!”
In your keeping are now placed the destinies of that
shrinking woman, for wedded happiness or wedded woe;
your own tranquillity and peace of mind, perhaps your
honor as a husband and father hang upon your de-
cision: now. Be cautious how you thread the mysterious
path before you. You have need of all the fortitude
and self-control you can possibly summon to your aid,
in this great emergency. You may talk of the instincts
of nature, but in you these instincts are brutalized; in
her they arc .jrtificially suppressed. You have the
double task of curbing the former and of developing
the latter. Undoubtedly the “instincts of nature”
would make the marriage consummation a very awk-

ward proceeding, sufficiently protracted for all prac-
13 :
146 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Further Advice to the Husband.

 

tical purposes; but society has gotten these instincts
sadly out of tune for both of you. By proper caution
and delicacy on your part they may yet be harmonized.
And perfect accord be thus secured. Your first words
should be those of re-assurance and sympathy. Assure
her most positively that her apprehensions are ground-
less, that no consummation shall occur this night, or,
indeed, at all, until on that, as you trust on all other
subjects, your wishes and hers shall exactly harmonize;
above all, inform her that whenever your happy mar-
riage shall be consummated, neither violence nor suffer-
ing shall attend it, but perfect and reciprocal happiness
shall crown the act. You should know that gentleness,
moderation, but more than all, due and reasonable cul-
tivation of her womanly passion will enable you to ful-
fill your pledge to the very letter. You should know
that in rare cases days or even weeks must elapse be-
fore entire consummation can be effected, but that when
‘it does occur the slight pain she will suffer will be of
such a character as shall increase, rath@hyhan diminish
her pleasure. You will also discover, by experience,
that with due deliberation and prudence, Nature will co-
operate in your favor to relieve you of nearly all the

trouble you anticipate.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 147

 

Advice to Husband continued.

 

We can not be more explicit than this, but you will
readily comprehend our meaning when you obey these
instructions. The slightest intimation of pain or fear
should warn you to desist, being determined that under
no circumstances shall more violence be used than is
obviously invited and shared. In one word, beware of
committing a veritable outrage on the person of her
whom God has given you for a companion. From all
that we can learn, and the instances from which we de-
rive our conclusions are very numerous, the first conju-
gal act is little else than a legalized rape, in most cases.
Let nothing interfere with your determination to wait
for and obtain entire reciprocity of thought and desire,
and let this always be your guide, not only during the
honey-moon, but also throughout your married exist-
ence. Thus will you secure not only happiness and
love for yourself, but that perfect confidence and grati-
tude from your wife which shall make her literally a
sharer in your joys, as she must needs be in your sor-
rows. You should never forget that this passion is
ordinarily slower of growth and more tardy of excita-
tion in women than in men, but when fairly aroused in
them it is incomparably stronger and more lasting.

This, of course, with due allowances for differences of
148 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

How Often may the Conjugal Act be Repeated?

 

individual temperaments. Therefore be careful to avoid
a most common error of unphilosophical man, that of
undue haste and precipitation on these occasions
throughout your wedded career. Be always assured
that your wife is at least in entire sympathy with your
own condition. It is rare that two natures are so ex-
actly in harmony with each other that love and desire
are always equal in both, but the rule should be for the
one who loves the most to measure his ardor by that of the
one who loves the least.

We are now led to anticipate the question, “ How
frequently does health or prudence permit the repeti-
tion of the marital act?” No positive rule can be
stated on this subject, dependent, as it is, on so great
a variety of conditions, as individual temperaments, state
of health at the moment, etc., but general principles can
be clearly stated, from which may be readily deduced
rules for particular instances. Regard must always be
had to instructions already stated; namely, that nothing
should induce a man to gratify his own desires at the
expense of his wife’s comfort or inclination; that the
lawful pleasures of wedlock should never be permitted
to degenerate into mere animal lust; that the rule should

be, in all cases, to keep within but never to exceed the
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 149

 

Moderation on Both Sides Required.

 

limits of fond desire. Franklin’s rule for eating, always
to rise from the table with an appetite for more, can
wisely be applied to the conjugal act—never to repeat it
so frequently but that the ability on both sides exists
for further indulgence.

Perhaps most men learn this lesson soon enough for
themselves, but a strongly passionate woman may well-
nigh ruin a man of feebler sexual organization than
her own, and so it is important that the woman also
should be familiarized with the “physiology of matri-
mony,” sufficiently, at least, to refrain from too exact-
ing or frequent demands. Whatever may be her feel-
ings, she should always remember that delicacy, as well
as prudence and common sense, require her to await the
advances of her companion before she manifests her
willingness for his approaches. If, on the one hand, he
is bound to respect her temperamental conditions, she,
on her part, is equally bound to preserve toward him
such an amount of womanly reserve and continence as
shall prove, at the same time, her most alluring attri-
bute, as well as her most successful guarantee of contin-
ued conjugal happiness. Something should always be
held in reserve, no less of her capacity for bestowing

and receiving enjoyment, than of her personal and
150 SATAN EN SOCIETY.

 

“ Love Moderately ; Long Love doth so.”

 

peculiar charms. The imagination should always be left
to occupy itself in depicting those treasures which it has
enjoyed but never beheld; and thus the husband will re-
main the lover, and courtship continue until death do them
part. Drapery but enhances the estimation in which
men hold the female attractions of person, and the rustle
of a woman’s garment is more potent to charm than

the lavish exposure of the proportions of a Venus.

“These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume: the sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite:
Therefore, love moderately ; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.”

From once to thrice a month may be stated as a fair
average frequency for the indulgence during the com-
parative youth and health of both parties, and when no
circumstances exist to render abstinence a necessity.

There are but two legitimate methods of avoiding in-
crease of family, and these should be adopted only for
legitimate reasons, such as bona fide considerations of
health, or clearly established peculiarities of constitution.
No sordid calculations of economy should have a feath-

er’s weight in the adoption of either. Whom the Lord
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 151

 

Legitimate Means of Limiting Offspring.

 

endews with existence He provides for, according to the
needs of His children, and no mere human foresight can
discever whether economy lies in the increase or dim-
inution in the number of children. The first and incom-
parably the most judicious method of avoiding offspring
is entire continence during the time it is desirable or
necessary to remain exempt. The second method is at
the same time less positive and of more doubtful pro-
priety. We allude here to the law of partial conti-
nence ; that is, absolute avoidance of the conjugal act for
the term of fourteen days after the cessation of the last
monthly period. This is the extreme limit, and in cer-
tain cases may be shortened by two or even four days,
but these are exceptional cases, and there are no prac-
tical means of ascertaining with positiveness the excep-
tions to the rule. All other methods of prevention of
offspring are disgusting, beastly, positively wrongful, as
well as unnatural, and physically injurious. Some of
them are so revolting that it is impossible to imagine
how persons with the least pretensions to decency can
adopt them. Any deliberate preparations with such an
object savor too much of cold-blooded calculation to he
even possible with pure-minded people. At best, the

conjugal act should be spontancous, and directly in
152 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

All other Methods Wicked and Injurious.

 

accordance with the promptings of Nature. A husband
who can coolly lay his plans with reference to future
performances of this character, is guilty of practicing
the seducer’s art in relation to his own marriage bed;
he is the unclean bird that literally befouls his own
nest. It is then impossible that those who are guilty
of such practices can be ignorant of their wicked and
criminal nature, and the woman who consents, equally
with the man who organizes the method, is a willful and
premeditated criminal. We are not writing for the
benefit of such persons. We can positively assert, how-
ever, that, without a single exception, they are certainly
productive of disastrous consequences to health. But
there is a practice so universal that it may well be
termed a national vice, so common that it is unblush-
ingly acknowledged by its perpetrators, for the commis-
sion of which the husband is even eulogized by his
wife, and applauded by her friends, a vice which is the
scourge and the desolation of marriage; it is the crime
of Onan. “He spilled his seed upon the ground, lest
children should be born. And therefore the Lord slew
him, because he did a detestable thing.”

Who can doubt that Almighty God, in this terrible

punishment, wished to impart to man a positive moral
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 153

 

The Crime of Onan.

 

instruction which should endure to the end of time, for
the crime of Onan will have imitators while the world
endures—as what crimes will not? But that these
should be found among men of respectability would
surpass belief, if the thing were not notoriously true.
At any rate, the conjugal onanists in this age and
country are more numerous than the exceptions. Min-
isters of the Gospel, prominent Church members, the
very élite of society, well-nigh monopolize the art, for
it is far less common to find repugnance to offspring in
the lower classes than in “ upper-tendom.”

This enormous crime is not in all cases confined to
the husband; the wife too often becomes affected with
the diabolical mania, and not only by consent, but often
by voluntary effort, facilitates its accomplishment. The
writer knows of cases in which this conduct has been
the cause of domestic discord, through remonstrances
on the part of the husband. In these instances the
woman only was guilty of the crime. One example
must suffice.

We were consulted by a gentleman of the highest
respectability, who complained that his wife had not
only never borne him children, but was so constituted

that she seemed incapable of permitting full completion
154 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Conjugal Onanism continued.

 

of the conjugal act. On inquiry, it appeared that she
had acted by the instigations of her own mother, who
had instructed her in the execution of a certain maneu-
ver too indecent to describe, by which she “could avoid
the dangers of child-birth.” Yet this monstrous mother
is a zealous member of an “orthodox” Church, and not
only believes in hell-fire, but indicates without scruple
the very souls who, in her opinion, will be consigned
to it. It is a comfort to add that the machinations of
the old she-devil were readily thwarted by proper med-
ical advice, and the parties now glory in the possession
of children and connubial bliss.

We now propose to offer a few physiological reasons
why this crime of Onan should never be committed,
even if moral considerations were entirely out of the
question. The effect of the practice on man is incon-
testably similar to that of masturbation. All the effects
of the solitary vice are not manifested, because certain
of the conditions are wanting, but its influence on mind
and body is only less in degree. The act being against
Nature, she revenges herself for her violated laws in
diseases of the brain and spinal marrow, functional dis-
orders, organic diseases of the heart, lungs, and kid-

neys, wasting of the muscles, blindness, and frequently
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 155

 

Effects Similar to those of Masturbation.

 

by impotence. The effects, in fact, are slower in devel-
opment, but the same in kind. The victim finally suc-
cumbs to some acute or chronic disorder, and his epitaph
may be written, “ Therefore the Lord slew him because
he did a detestable thing.”

The effect upon woman is more obvious, because more
immediate and local. The orgasm induced in the female
organs by the conjugal act is such that, if left incom-
plete, the congestion does not immediately relieve itself,
and inflammations, ulcerations, and final sterility are
the results. The phenomena known as female weak-
nesses are produced oftener by this than by all other
causes combined. Derangements of the bladder, rectum,
and womb arising from this cause -are well-nigh intract-
able. But these things rarely kill; we do not read
that God slew Thamar.

A consideration which should operate most power-
fully with generous natures, against this practice, is the
fact that in every instance the most cruel injusticc
is practiced upon the woman in the incompleteness of
the act. It is impossible for a woman, however pas-
sionate and loving she may be, to reach the true crisis
of the sexual act when conjugal onanism is practiced.

It is well known to physiologists that the contact of
156 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Illustrative Case. Injunction of Continence,

 

the seminal fluid with the neck of the womb, is a posi-
tive necessity, not only for the proper reduction of the
local congestion, but for the realization on her part of
the pleasure to which the woman is justly entitled.
But few repetitions of these incomplete approaches are
requisite to well-nigh obliterate all ideas of enjoyment
on the part of the wife so defrauded, and, therefore,
another and very powerful cause of conjugal unhappi-
ness is added to those already enumerated. But these
considerations can have but little weight with most
men—to their shame be it spoken. The gratification
of their own lust—we can not term it pleasure—is,
with the majority of men, the leading idea connected
with the marriage bed.

Many years ago we were consulted by one of the
first women of the nation for maladies which we were
convinced were attributable solely to this common vice.
A few well-directed questions established the correct-
ness of our opinion, and in connection with the course
of treatment prescribed was the injunction of tempo-
rary continence. Scarcely a week elapsed, when we
received from our patient the following ludicrous yet
sufficiently touching recital: “I informed my husband of

the doctor’s positive injunction, to which he promised a
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 157

 

Case continued. Injunction Disregarded.

 

cheerful obedience, and we commenced to occupy sep-
arate apartments. But, after three or four days, he
came to me one morning, and insisted on my compli-
ance with his wishes. In vain I pleaded my physician’s
instructions. He urged the following plea: ‘Mrs. —,
I toil early and late at my business, and amass wealth »
which I lavish freely upon you. I give you horses
and carriages, servants, social position, and luxuries of
every sort, [Ah, doctor, if he would only give me the
luxury of letting me alone!] and I only ask, in return,
that you accord to me my just and lawful rights as
your husband. The doctor is paid for curing you—he
must know enough to do it without such an unnec-
essary restriction.’ Now, doctor, what could I do?
There was much force in what he said, and it scemed
cold and selfish in me to refuse, (!) so my fealty to my
husband got the better of my obedience to my phy-
sician.”’ Now, when it is considered that this truly
wretched woman was suffering from a combined inflam-
mation of the bladder, womb, and rectum, and that the
act in question could only be attended by absolute tor-
ture, and, moreover, that she was one of that numerous
class who “had never known pleasure in the conjugal

act,” the heroism of her acquiescence, no less than the
158 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

“So ought Men to Love their Wives as their own Bodies,”’

 

‘brutal selfishness of her “hard-working husband,” is
at once apparent. Yet the man was, in appearance
and in the estimation of his fellow-men, a fair average
type of the “Christian gentleman.”

This is by no means an extreme case. It is but
one among many hundreds within our observation. All
physicians can attest the great difficulty they encounter
in the treatment of cases in which the rule of conti-
nence—even though temporary—becomes a necessity.

That man is, by his very nature, hard, selfish, and
tyrannical toward woman we have elsewhere sufli-
ciently proved. We have also shown the causes and
cure of this oppression. Christianity, however, while
vastly ameliorating the condition of woman in all other
respects, has shown a surprising diffidence in dealing
with the brutality to which she is subjected in the
marriage chamber. “Wives submit yourselves to you
husbands” is a text which has been construed with
a crushing literalness, while the reciprocal injunction,
“Husbands love your wives,” and “So ought men to
love their wives as their own bodies,’”’ seems to be en-
tirely ignored.

A woman of much social and intellectual distinction

said, not long ago, “When my hushand closes the door
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 159

 

The Law ignores Cruelty in the exercise of ‘‘ Marital Rights.”

 

of our apartments at night, he is no longer a man, he
is a monster!” Christianity has been imitated by the
civil law in this last remaining tyranny, which she still
permits to be exercised upon the “weaker vessel.”
For a woman subjected to the most hellish tortures
under the forms of “marital rights” there would seem
to be, literally, no redress either in “Church or State.”
Religion replies to such an one, “Your duty to your
husband is submission,” while the Civil Code utterly
ignores her complaint. In a land where divorces can
be had on the most frivolous pretexts, no allegations of
cruelty in the marriage chamber, however horrible they
may be, can command a hearing. The author, even
while writing this book, has had the strongest proof of
this in an application for divorce just terminated. A
young and beautiful girl who had “taken all the hon-
ors” in the high school of her city, and subsequently
carried off the prizes for scholarship and lady-like ac-
complishments in a celebrated seminary, was persuaded
by her parents to marry a man far inferior to herself,
whose sole recommendation was his wealth. We were
called to attend the lady some months after her mar-
riage, and a more pitiful spectacle has seldom come

within our professional observation. We could scarcely
160 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Case in Court. Strong Evidence

 

realize that the haggard and emaciated creature before
us was the wreck of the beautiful girl so recently pro-
verbial for her fascinations. In place of the brilliant
eyes, flashing with proud intelligence, her dull and list-
less orbs told the sad story of already approaching in-
sanity. A few questions, followed by a physical exam-
ination, and the “diagnosis” was simple enough. This
bestial husband had brought the poor girl to her sad
condition wholly by his excesses in the exercise of his
“marital rights.” It is difficult to imagine the horrible
condition to which the whole generative organization
had been brought. Womb, vagina, bladder, and rec-
tum, all were fearfully inflamed and mangled. The
case was simply dreadful. Separation was obtained.
Many painful weeks of treatment succeeded in restor-
ing her to comparative health, and we were subpoenaed as
medical witness in her suit for “divorce and alimony.”
We gave our testimony, detailing with minuteness the
disease and its cause. It was proved by the sworn state-
ments of the wife and full admissions by her husband
that a course of incredible brutality, arising from his
fiendish passions, had been pursued toward her “night
and day” from the first night following their marriage;

but the evidence also showed that “ outside of their
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 161

 

Cancer of Womb as a Result of Conjugal Onanism.

 

bedroom he was kind and even affectionate.” The
court decided that the charge of cruelty was not proven,
inasmuch as the law does not take cognizance of the
sexual relations of married persons! Positively, during
the same session of the same court, some twenty odd
divorces were granted upon allegations which, compared
with what this poor woman had suffered, were heavenly
virtues. And now comes this same brutal husband and
applies in his turn for a divorce from his wife on “the
ground of desertion!” Undoubtedly, he will have no
difficulty in obtaining it. .

While briefly reciting the consequences entailed upon
the woman by the practice of conjugal onanism, we re-
served for special mention the frightful danger of cancer
of the womb. We have high authority for the statement
that this loathsome disease has this cause for its origin
more frequently than any other. Indeed, if the consti-
tutional proclivity to cancer exist in an individual, the
practice of this vice is almost swre to develop it.

If the ejection of the seminal fluid upon the mouth
of the womb and within the vagina be necessary to the
attainment of pleasure in the sexual act, as we have
already stated, it is absolutely indispensable to safety.
There is in this fluid a oo specifie property which,
162 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Philosophy of its Operation.

 

as it were, remedies the otherwise dangerous condition
in which the womb and vagina are placed by the vene-
real excitement. And this property is something pe-
culiar, outside of and beyond the mechanical effect
already referred to; consequently nothing can be devised
to take its place, and consequently, whenever the genital
function is not completed physiologically, direct injury
results. The explanation is this: the generative organs
both male and female, are invariably congested, that is
to say, the vessels are unduly filled with blood during
copulation. Now, while in man this congestion subsides
with the stimulus which occasioned it, in woman it per-
sists to a considerable extent, and new congestions be-
ing successively added to the preceding, there result, at
first, what are termed engorgements, then inflammations,
then follow ulcerations, and then, if there be the least
predisposition to cancer, those frightful, malignant de-
generations succeed which carry so many victims to
premature graves.

There remains still another grave danger to be appre-
hended from this vice, at the bare mention of which,
doubtless, many will be inclined to smile, and to charge
us with exaggeration. Nevertheless, we assert, and it

is abundantly within our observation to prove, that infi-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 163

 

Infidelity of Wives a Result.

 

delity on the part of the wife is often traceable direcily
to this practice. The thing is altogether natural. The
immorality of the husband leads him to teach his young
wife the stratagems invented and practiced by libertines.
Probably no pure-minded wife ever found herself the
innocent accomplice in these outrages without at first
feeling the blush of shame, without a secret warning
from her conscience of their gross immorality. If, then,
she becomes hardened to this practice, she will not fail,
if ever her virtue be tempted, to remember tlie lessons
acquired in her own marriage bed—lessons which have
taught her how she can violate her marriage vows with-
out fear of detection! Her chastity, forsooth! She has
long since sacrificed it to him who should have best
known how to preserve it. She has ceased to blush, and
the woman who has ceased to blush is already open to
the suggestions of vice, and if thereafter the honor of
the husband remain intact, it is because circumstances
are more favorable to him than his own sagacity. It
was but this very day that, wishing to make a strong
impression on @ young woman who is suffering most
acutely from the effects of conjugal onanism, we said
to her, “ Why, madam, you would be doing no worse

in committing adultery.” Her answer was somewhat
164 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Intercourse during Pregnancy.

 

startling: “I agree with you perfectly, sir.’ ‘Then
why, in Heaven’s name, don’t you cease?” ‘Well,
doctor, you must talk with my husband,” was her sug-
gestive reply.

Marital intercourse during pregnancy is a question on
which theologians and moralists are, as yet, divided in
opinion. The former contend that, while there are cer-
tain periods—embracing the first days and last month
of pregnancy—when marital approaches are prohibited
by reason of the greater danger of abortion,* at other
times moderate indulgence is permissible, while moral-
ists urge that the virtue of husbands would be endan-
gered by any restrictions, and maintain that this is of
greater importance than the health of the wife or even
the safety of the foetus. With these discussions, how-
ever, we have nothing to do in this connection. We
merely allude to them as proving that there is a recog- :
nized danger to health of parents and life of offspring
in the least departure from the rule of continence dur-
ing gestation. We wish to speak only in our own
proper sphere of physician, and to express the clearly
established facts of science. The legitimate object of

*Parentes primis septem a@ conceptione diebus ac tempore partui
proxime ad abstinendum & maritale congressu obligantur, propter

abortiis timorem.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 165

 

Punishments for such Violations of Nature’s Laws.

 

the sexual act being absent, no physiological end can
be subserved, and the practice is, therefore, against
Nature, and consequently injurious. “To make love at
all times is what distinguishes man from other animals,”
says Beaumarchais; and, in fact, with all other animals
the condition of pregnancy is sacred from masculine ap-
proaches. There is no exception to this law. It might,
therefore, be supposed that the exaltation of the sexual
instinct by the imagination and vicious practices of man,
is the occasion of his violation of what appears to be a
law of Nature. Such is indeed the fact, and, like
many another unnatural proceeding, it surely entails
its punishment.

The first and most obvious penalty is the danger of
miscarriage. Certain it is that the conjugal act is irrec-
oncilable with all the precautions which medicine and
prudence enjoin upon the pregnant woman. All causes
of mechanical irritation, especially those which operate
directly upon the womb or neighboring organs, are
strictly forbidden. Violent mental emotions are depre-
cated as highly injurious. Both of these dangers are
certainly combined in coition, and both are directed
immediately upon the organ in question, impeding the

process of gestation, and therefore working serious
166 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Abortions in the Early Stages of Pregnancy.

 

injury to the developing germ, or causing pain, conges-
tions, inflammations, floodings, and miscarriage. The
celebrated accoucheur Levret attributes to coition “the
greater number of abortions of which the causes are oth-
erwise obscure.” Zimmermann, Gardieu, Murat, Duges,
and many others concur in the statement shat it trans-
cends in frequency all other causes combined. Prosti-
tutes who become pregnant almost invariably miscarry :
of two hundred cases of pregnancy among them, mis-
carriage occurred in all but three!

Abortions during the first few days after conception,
are exceedingly frequent, and often occur without the
knowledge of the parties. A woman “goes over her
time” by a few days, and then has some pain and con-
siderable flooding. She regards as delayed menstrua-
tion what in fact was a veritable conception; and these
abortions are very frequently repeated, eventuating in
broken health and sterility. By far the most common
origin of such evils is the fault in question. The author
has treated many such cases where, his advice being
followed, the evil has ceased. The remedy is obvious.

But abortion, with all its attendant perils to the
mother, is not the only danger entailed by this prac-

tice. Many learned observers have not hesitated to
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 167

 

Disastrous Consequences of Excessive Coition.

 

ascribe to this cause those protracted and unnatural
labors in which the mother so often perishes with her
offspring. Horrible as this reflection may be, it is nev-
ertheless a fact that the repeated attraction of blood
to the womb which excesses of this nature must occa-
sion, can not fail to place it in those conditions most cal-
culated to engender not only great dangers during child-
birth, but the manifold after-affections, such as puerperal
fever and the like, which desolate so many hearths.

It is a fact long admitted in science that excessive
coition during pregnancy exerts a profound influence
upon the child, occasioning those puny, sickly little
objects of compassion upon whom “the sins of their
fathers”? have been literally visited. Deformed, idiotic,
undeveloped infants are often the product of such preg-
nancies, while those hideous objects known as “mon-
strosities” owe their abnormal development to this
above all other causes!

Tf, then, excessive coition during pregnancy is followed
by such disastrous consequences, the effect of even mod-
erate indulgence can be only less in degree. It must
certainly exert some influence, and to that extent is in-
jurious. The best that can be said of it is that it is a

questionable means of preserving a husband’s virtue.
168 ‘SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Intercourse During Lactation. The Sexual Instinct in Old Age.

 

During lactation, also, the physiological aim of sexual
intercourse is in abeyance, as indicated by the suspen-
sion of the menstrual function. It is certain that the
whole resources of the female economy, while nursing
her infant, are absorbed and occupied. She is living
for two, and needs to be free from physical and men-
tal burdens. Nevertheless, as instances of pregnancy
occurring during lactation are not wanting, the fact
shows that the end of sexual intercourse is possible,
and therefore the act is not, in itself, against Nature.
It were best, however, to confine the indulgence within
the most severe limits of prudence. We are positive
that six weeks after the birth of a child is the very
earliest that marital approaches should be attempted
under any circumstances.

All that we have thus far stated in this chapter has
had reference to early married life. The parties were
presumed to be young, or, at least, not to have passed
the period of middle life. As age advances new laws
gain the ascendency in the married life. In well-regu-
lated lives the sexual passions become less and less
imperious, diminishing gradually, until at an average
age of forty-five in the woman, and fifty-five in the man,

they are but rarely awakened, and seldom solicited. It
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 169

Intercourse after “Change of Life.”

 

is as though Nature had decreed that, in the decline of
the generative faculty, while the other functions are still
in their perfection, man shall enjoy in the calmness of
reason and silence of the passions, the results of his
work, and seeing himself, in some sort, reproduced in
his children, may look forward without regret to the
end of his mortal existence. Nor is this the least sub-
lime side of married life. Nothing can exceed the
beneficent calm of parents descending the down-hill of
life, in whose well-regulated existence the past has no
remorse for violated laws, and with whom the present,
freed from the torments of excitement, has only the
sweet rewards of contentment and chaste repose. Sur-
rounded by the numerous pledges of their earlier loves,
they may indeed abandon the cares, and toils, and strug-
gles of life to those who owe to them their existence,
and thus far their maintenance. It is the natural order
of things, that the parents shall thus, as it were, change
places with their children. After the “change of life”
with woman, sexual congress, while permissible, should
be infrequent, no less for her own sake than that of the
husband, whose advancing years should warn him of the
medical maxim: “ Each time that he delivers himself to

this indulgence, he casts a shovelful of earth upon his
15
170 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

The Amorous Old Man. Ridiculous and Contemptible.

 

coffin.” This caution is the concentration of wisdom,
and we commend it to our readers—at the risk of not
being heeded.

A profound observer has written: “One of the chief
causes of this infraction of the true principles of hygiene
is, that man, in the beginning of old age, long refuses to
believe himself to be what he is. His reminiscences,
almost synonymous with regrets, are always tormenting
his memory and his heart; for he constantly looks back
to contemplate on the distant horizon, that promised
land of love and its pleasures, where it would be so sweet
to dwell if it were possible to remain there. With dif-
ficulty does he accustom himself to the idea that the
high prerogative of procreation is almost withdrawn from
him, and he declines to admit to himself to the latest
moment, the state of decay with which Nature has stricken
him. This new existence seems, as it were, reproachful
and degrading; since there are very few persons capable
of accepting old age without weakness of mind and de-
rangement of reason. Time whitens their heads without
disenchanting their spirit. Besides, a man of good con-
stitution, whom age has not yet overpowered, still ex-
periences perfidious and tempting reminiscences; all

seems young in him except the date of his birth. His
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 171

 

‘*To have Loved Women too Much, is to Love them Always.”

 

years are expended, but not his strength. He admits to
himself that desire is not as pressing as formerly; that
he no longer feels that excess of life, that fire, that ar-
dor, which once inflamed his blood and his heart, but
he does not deem himself an athlete so disarmed that
he ought entirely to abandon the contest and the tri-
umph. As Fenelon says, ‘The young man has not yet
been killed in him.’ Many old madcaps, loaded with
years, are recognized in this picture. I only ask them
to be sincere. Is not this the humiliating portion of
certain superannuated coxcombs, whose disgraces in
love are contemptible, and whose successes are perfectly
ridiculous? Sometimes the evil is rooted in the habits,
and, as a thinker of our time has said, ‘the punishment
of those who have loved women too much is to love them
always.’

“Tt is only repeated defeats, formidable diseases, the
swift and precipitous advance of old age, which at
length teach the imprudent being what he should have
long since known, that comfort and health consist—
above all in the decline of life—in the proper accord of a
remnant of force, an approved reason, and sober conduct.

“Another motive equally impels certain old men to

dangerous excesses; it is the example of aged men who,
172 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Examples of Marriage in Old Age.

 

in reality or in appearance, preserve the faculties that
age always destroys. So they recall them; they quote
them with complaisance, with a sort of inward satisfac-
tion, disposed, as they are, to reckon themselves in this
category of the predestinated. Thus, the Maréchal a’
Estrées was married for the third time at the age of
ninety-one, and married, say they, ‘very seriously.’
The Duke of Lauzun lived a long time after having in-
dulged in excesses of every kind. The Maréchal de
Richelieu was married to Madame de Roth at the age of
eighty-four, and, they add, ‘ with impunity.” Then how
can we believe what Bacon says, that the debauches
of youth are conjurations against age, and that one pays
dearly in the evening for the follies of the morning?
“You see that it is not always thus, and the gay old
fellow who thinks himself rejuvenated by some desires
hidden beneath the ashes, is delighted to cite such exam-
ples. But what signify certain isolated and assuredly
very rare facts? Ought one to govern himself by such
examples unless he also has received from nature one
of those exceptional constitutions, of which the erotic
salaciousness ends only with life? It would be a very

fatal mistake !’’*

*Revarte-Parisz. Traité de la Vieillesse.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 173

 

Time of Life when Strict Continence should be Maintained.

 

Besides the numerous evils which old men produce
by the inconsiderate indulgence in sexual pleasures, it
should be understood that sudden death is sometimes
the immediate consequence, by hemorrhage of the brain,
(apoplexy,) or rupture of large blood-vessels. These
accidents happen as the consequence of a violent and
undue emotion, accelerating the pulsations of the heart,
or of efforts which, for the moment, suspend respira-
tion.

The precise period of life at which it is imperative
that a man should maintain continence for the remain-
der of his existence, it is, of course, impossible to state,
dependent, as it is, on a great variety of circumstances,
as the constitution of the individual, and the expendi-
ture of his virile forces in early life. In doubtful cases
an experienced physician should be taken into confi-
dence. . Says the author from whom we have already
quoted: “When you see an old man full of judgment,
endowed with strong reason, whose enlightened and
active mind is still capable of properly directing his
affairs, and of being useful to society, be convinced that
that man is prudent and continent; that temperance, so
justly called sophrosyne—guardian of wisdom—with

the ancients, has in him a fervent worshiper. In fact,
174 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Deliverance from the Tyranny of the Sexual Instinct.

 

has he not acquired complete moral liberty? Is he not
delivered from a violent tyranny? Such was the opin-
ion of Cicero: ‘Behold, says he, ‘a good reply of
Sophocles to some one who asked him if, being old, he
still enjoyed the pleasures of love: “May the gods
preserve me from them!” said he; “I have abandoned
them as willingly as I would have quitted a savage and

furious master.”’’

Certainly, a man who has taken so
pure and so firm a position exhibits a very remarkable
moral vigor, and, after all, it should be remarked, he
merely follows the indications of nature. The imitators
of Sophocles, however, are not the less deserving of
praise, so little are men disposed to make the least sac-
rifice in this respect. It is necessary that you resolve
upon it, however; you whom age is nearing, and you
whom it has already attained. You wish to live as long
as possible, and with the least possible suffering—diffi-
cult solution of the grand problem of life. Well, re-
nounce that which is no longer in harmony with your
age, temperament, and forces. Accept from age peace,
repose, and wisdom, in exchange for the transports and
the flames of passion. Remember, moreover, that to

quit before losing entirely is, in many respects, an essen-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 175

 

Change in the Organs of Generation.

 

tial article of the hygienic code of old men.”* So may
they say with Adam:
“Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty:

For in my youth I never did apply

Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;

Nor did not, with unbashful forehead, woo

The means of weakness and debility ;

Therefore my age is as a lusty Winter,

Frosty, but kindly :”
(As You Lixz It, Act II, Scenz III.)

rather than with Macbeth :

“My way of life
Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf:
And that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but in their stead
Curses, not loud, but deep.”
Macsetn, Act V, Scene III.

The effect of these excesses on aged women is dif-
ferent, but not less serious. After the function of men-
struation has at length entirely ceased, a remarkable
change gradually develops in the organs of generation.
The womb shrinks and hardens, the vagina loses its
peculiar softness, and becomes harsh and dry—the vagi-
nal secretions, in fact, are altered or abolished. Every
thing goes to prove the inaptness of these organs for

* Op. cit. p. 431, et seq.
176 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Intercourse during Menstruation. Ill-assorted Marriages

 

the act of reproduction. Cancer of the womb or neigh-
boring organs, so common in women of advanced age,
is often the result of these unnatural connections.
While infrequent and moderate indulgences are not usu-
ally followed by disastrous consequences, habitual ex-
cesses are sure to be severely punished.

Sexual intercourse during the menstrual period need
scarcely be mentioned, save to warn against its dan-
gers. It is not often that persons are found to violate
the rule of decency in this regard, but now and again,
under the idea of immunity from the danger of concep-
tion, this proscribed period is selected. It is dangerous
for both pirtics, for reasons which we need not dwell
upon. It is sufficient to state the fact. It, moreover,
by no means presents an exemption from the liability
to pregnancy. This vulgar notion is a popular error.

Ill-assorted marriages in respect to age remain to be
considered. The most common is disparity of ages.
It is inconceivable with what stupid and ridiculous van-
ity lecherous old men are wont to seek for young wives.
It is still more inconceivable that their search is so
often successful. The fact is usually attributable to
the cupidity of parents, who do not hesitate to sacrifice

their daughters to the interests of position or fortune.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 177

 

Bitter Regrets and Criminal Hopes.

 

In these monstrous alliances, whether we consider
the reciprocal situation of the parties thus abusively
joined, or the kind of progeny which is likely to result
from them, we are equally moved with disgust and
compassion. Admitting, for an instant, that which is
seldom true, that the union has been concluded with
the free and voluntary consent of the young girl, and
that no undue pressure has been exerted over her
wishes, it must nevertheless occur that reflection and
experience will lead too late to bitter regrets, so much
the more poignant that they will be without remedy.

‘But when violence or persuasion—which is often the
same thing—have been employed to exact‘ the avowal
which the law requires, the revolt will be only the more
prompt and vehement. From that moment the married
life will become odious to the unhappy victim, and
criminal hopes will arise in her heart, the chains which
bind her will seem too cumbersome to wear, and she will
secretly long for the death of her superannuated hus-
band. In fact, the amours of old men are ridiculous
and hideous, as we have already stated, (see page 171,)
and the poor creature condemned to witness, but above
all to endure them, can hardly be sufficiently commiser-

ated. When one reflects upon this revolting subject he
178 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Resort to Adulterous Love.

 

can not resist a sensation akin to that inspired by the
idea of incest. All is in strong contrast, physically as
well as morally, and chastity is necessarily banished
from those embraces where the brutality of the senses
is not moderated and poetized, so to speak, by the pas-
‘sionate transports of the heart. So it is altogether
natural, the restraints of religion apart, that the young
creature should violently rupture the hated bonds, or
endeavor to fill the void in her heart by adulterous love.
Sometimes, indeed, by an heroic practice of Christian
fortitude, she resigns herself to her fate, and then her
sad and cheerless life is one perpetual martyrdom.
Such is the somber picture of those sacrilegious
unions which set at defiance the most respectable in-
stincts, the most noble thoughts, and the most legiti-
mate hopes. Such are the terrible penaltics reserved
for the improvident and foolish pride of those dissolute
old men who expend their last breath of life in the
quest of perfidious pleasures. We shall not review the
dangers which we have already sufficiently exposed, in-
herent to the exercise of the genital sense in advanced
age. It is true that these dangers are only for the
man, but they are so much the more imminent, as the

young wife is the more capable of arousing the sensual
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 179

 

Effect on the Man. Prohibitory Laws Demanded.

 

appetite by her graces, her youth, and all those other
attractions with which she is endowed. Alas! for the
old dotard who dares to drink of this enchanted cup!
Nature will assuredly avenge herself most cruelly for
her violated laws. “It is better to be an old man’s
darling than a young man’s slave” is a proverb which
reveals the corruption of our manners, and the stupid
infamy which makes of the nuptial couch an arena of
debauch as detestable as the very slums of vice.

The interests of posterity, no less than of public
morals, demand prohibitory laws upon this subject, and
we call upon our legislators to boldly prescribe the
extreme difference in age, beyond which it shall be
unlawful for marriages to be solemnized. A law of
this nature would do much toward reforming the injus-
tice, now daily committed, in the re-marriage of widow-
ers, the rights of whose children are thus ruthlessly
invaded. Independently of the proverbial cruelty of
step-mothers, there are often property considerations of
great importance. Domestic infelicity of the most fla-
grant character is thus introduced in families whose
home-circles had been hitherto models of innocent hap-
piness. The evil would be well-nigh remedied by the

proposed legislation, for, if the temptation to seek
180 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

The Products of such Marriages.

 

young wives were removed, few old men would care

for re-marriage. The products of such marriages are
generally vitiated in blood, sickly, and predisposed to
all morbific agencies. The explanation of this fact is
complex, and relates to the abnormal character of the
seminal fluid, to the physical prostration of the father,
and doubtless, also, to the absence of harmonious con-
ditions in the generative act.

Every one must have observed in the progeny of old
men that sad and serious aspect, so different from the
ordinary infantile expression. In proportion as their
growth progresses, these unfortunate innocents acquire
more and more of the senile expression, and either suc-
cumb in their childhood to the diseases for which they are
proverbially an easy prey, or they eke out a miserable
and puny existence, rarely attaining to adult age.*

* Exceptional instances of procreative ability in advanced life are
mentioned in medical works—instances so rare, moreover, that they
are preserved as curious items of medical history. Among others
are the following:

Begon, a physician of Puy-en-Velay, tells of a lawyer of his own
time and country who was married at the age of seventy-five, “moved
thereto by a principle of conscience, being no longer able to resist the
tardy but violent impulses of a temperament which excited him to love.’’

An armorer of Montfaucon, aged eighty, feeling a sudden renewal

of forces which he had thought forever lost, remarried and generated
vigorous children.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 181

 

Illustrative Cases.

 

Disparity of ages in which the woman is the older
is a comparatively rare occurrence. Melancholy in-
stances happen sufficiently often, however, to render it
necessary that we should also include these ill-assorted
unions in our denunciations. While they are infinitely
preferable, in the moral and physical point of view,
to the vicious connections of which we have hitherto
spoken, they are, nevertheless, to be deprecated as en-
tailing not only positive unhappiness, but grave dangers
to health.

Thomas Farr, an Englishman of celebrity, who died at the ripe
age of one hundred and fifty, at one hundred and twenty married a
widow, and for a long time ‘continued to accomplish the matrimo-
nial act with a punctuality for which his companion was pleased to
render him justice.”

According to Valerius Maximus, Massinissa, King of Numidia,
engendered one of his fifty-four sons at the age of ninety-six.

Felix Plater affirms that his grandfather continued to procreate
until the age of one hundred.

A well-authenticated case is given in DL’ Histoire de l’ Académie des
Sciences, attested by the Bishop of Seez. It is that of a man who, at
the age of ninety-four, espoused a woman of eighty-three, “whom
he had rendered enceintel’? She was delivered at full term of a boy.

Behr, a distinguished physician of the last century, relates the
case of a man aged ninety-siz, “who, having married a woman of
only ninety-three, accomplished thrice each night the duties of mar-
riage.’ During three years of this practice the old monster suffered
“no appreciable alteration in health.”

It is related of Wadislas, a king of Poland, that he begot two sons
at the age of ninety.
182 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

The Wife should Never be the Senior of the Husband.

 

In no case should the age of the woman exceed that ox
her husband, to however slight an extent. The earlier
relative period of “old age” will mark this disparity
very painfully as time progresses, a disparity which
must gradually develop itself in the decade of thirty
to forty. So, while the husband appears in the prime
of his manhood, “the sere, the yellow leaf” is too
obviously stealing over the wife. There is something
exceedingly touching in the efforts put forth by these
forlorn wives to hide the inexorable ravages of time.
But the resources of art, albeit dangerous to health,*
can not long postpone the evil day when the poor
creature, the senior of her husband, finds herself the
unmistakable “old woman,” no longer personally at-
tractive to her husband, himself, perhaps, in the very
pride of manly beauty. It is in precisely these cir-
cumstances that so many men justify themselves in the
establishment of criminal relations, often introducing

their paramours into the very household, under the

#A yecent analysis of all the “hair restoratives’”’ of repute, em-
bracing more than twenty of those professing to “restore the original
color of the hair,” exhibits the presence of lead in quantities of from
one to six grains to the ounce in every one of them, while several
contained other poisons. Spinal complaints, neuralgias, paralysis,
and very frequently death itself, result from the use of these diabol-
ical contrivances.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 183

 

True procreative Maturity.

 

guise of servants, governesses, etc., but more frequently
maintainirg separate establishments. These horrors are
toe often known or suspected by the unhappy wife,
who, “for the sake of peace,” or “to avoid publicity,”
or “on account of the children,’ or from womanly
pride, and, in many cases, from pure Christian forti-
tude, endures her torture in silence.

The age properly considered “marriageable,” is a
question of which there can be no absolute solution,
dependent, as it is, on so great a variety of conditions,
as climate, constitution, temperament, the actual state
of health of the individual, etc. As a general rule it is
imperative that the full growth shall have been attained,
the vital organs in good condition, and those of gen-
eration free from all faulty conformation which may
interfere with the consummation of the marriage. It is
also essential that in man the sexual instinct shall have
become sufficiently awakened, that the desire for sexual
relations shall have created in some sort a necessity.*
In a word, both sexes should have reached the age of
procreative maturity. True procreative maturity is that
condition in which the genital functions can be per

formed without danger to health, and in which the

* A caution but little required in this age and country.
184 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Minimum Marriageable Age in Different Countries.

 

requisite qualities may be transmitted to the resulting
offspring. So understood, this period is distinguished
from that of puberty by the term nubility; that is, the
age suitable for marriage. At the nubile age the pro-
creative ability has existed for some time without em-
ployment, so that it may have completely developed,
and be able to manifest its fullest powers. To this end
it is essential that the scminal secretion shall have re-
entered the organism, in order to have imparted the
requisite vigor to the constitution, and to have afforded
the full and normal development of the body. It is a
principle among stock raisers to delay the breeding of
animals until they shall have passed at least one or two
“rutting » seasons, in order to secure stronger and more
profitable results. This rule based upon experience, is
equally applicable to man, and with far greater force,
no less as regards the parents than the fruit of their
union. 3

The civil laws of different times and countries have
fixed the minimum age of parties to the marriage con-
tract as follows: with the Romans at thirteen years for
females, and at fifteen for males; in Prussia at fifteen
and nineteen; in France at fifteen and eighteen; in

Austria at sixteen and twenty. These are the ages
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 185

 

Five Years the Minimum, Fifteen the Maximum.

 

7

fixed by different nations as indicating the earliest period
of nubility. It will be observed that a difference of
from two to five years is allowed as the relative mar-
riageable age of the two sexes. It is by no means to
be inferred that this difference is intended to indicate the
rule for actual practice. It is simply intended to fix
the minimum nubile age for each of the sexes. Ex-
tended observation would lead us to recommend strongly
that a difference of from five years as the minimum to
fifteen years as the maximum should be regarded in the
choice of companions, as there is fully that difference in
the two sexes in “growing old.” In our temperate
climate we would indicate twenty-one as the nubile age
of women, and twenty-six as that of men. Within
proper limitations, early marriages are more apt to be
prosperous, as regards the health both of parents and
children, than late ones. Especially is this true of the
relative dangers of childbirth.*

As the average duration of a woman’s fecundity is
about twenty-five years, and as the mean duration of
pregnancy and lactation is eighteen months, it follows

# According to statistics, the proportion of unnatural labors to the
whole number is as one to twenty-eight, while in first labors the
proportion of deaths among women who have attained the age of

thirty is as one to nine.
16
186 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Consanguinity.

 

that a healthy woman can give birth to sixteen children,
but examples are not wanting in which, in consequence
of plural births or of prolonged periods of fecundity, as
many as twenty-four children have resulted from a sin-
gle marriage. At least six or eight children should be
the average product of well-assorted marriages.

Of ill-assorted marriages, in respect to consanguinity,
enough has long ago been written and said to sufficiently
educate all well-informed persons in a knowledge of their
pernicious character, yet it is not by any means rare
to witness intermarriage within the second and third
degrees, and the products of such connections are pro-
verbially feeble and delicate. The difficulty of “ rais-
ing” such children is but too well known to all physi-
cians of any experience. In nearly all civilized countries
civil legislation, as well as religious laws, have fixed the
degrees of consanguinity, within which they refuse to
sanction marriages. This prohibition is based upon the
following grave considerations:

1. That by causing the blood to “return into its
source,” the race is degenerated.

2. That the peace of families, which constitute the
foundation of society, is invaded, by destroying the
respect which children owe to their superiors, and that
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 187

 

Customs of Different Nations.

 

often the most shameful abuse of authority would be
practiced to subserve a criminal passion.

But this natural sentiment does not equally prevail
among all nations. For example, the Tartars some-
times espouse their daughters; with the Hindoos, mar-
riage between relations is tolerated only to the third
degree; at Siam, Eoypt, and Peru one might marry
his sister; with the Caribbees, Chilians, and Scythi-
ans a man could marry his daughter; among the Ara-
bians, Persians, and Parthians one might espouse his
mother.

But it is not only marriages within the prohibited
degrees which should be proscribed. Multiplied unions
between the same families are not less disastrous, in
that they all tend to the premature extinction of races.
This fact has been clearly demonstrated in a remarka-
ble work by De Chateauneuf, upon “The Duration of
Noble Families in France.’ This learned statistician
has proved that nearly all the old fainilies of a portion
of Europe have long since ceased to exist. His obser-
vations embrace France, Italy, England, and Spain.
In Germany, Holland, and Switzerland the male de-
scendants of William Tell have been extinct for nearly

two centuries. If some grand names have escaped the
188 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Consequences of Marriage between Relations.

general destruction, it has been by the aid of subter-
fuges of every sort, such as the infinite number of sub-
stitutions, the transmission of names by women of other
families, ete. Hxpedients of this nature abound in the
annals of old monarchies.

Ina communication to the Academy of Medicine, in
Paris, in 1856, Dr. Rilliet of Geneva, states in sub-
stance as follows: that in Geneva a considerable num-
ber of intermarriages have occurred among blood rela-
tions, and that his attention has been long attracted by
the fatal results to the health and even to the lives of
the children. These consequences are:

1. The absence of conception.

2. Delayed conception.

3. Imperfect conception. (Miscarriage.)

4. Incomplete products. (Monstrosities.)

5. Products whose physical and moral constitution is
imperfect.

6. Products more especially exposed to diseases of
the nervous system, and in the order of frequency:
epilepsy, imbecility or idiocy, deaf-mutes, paralysis, and
various diseases of the brain.

7. Lymphatic products — predisposed ‘to diseases

which relate to scrofulous and tubercular tendencies.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 189

 

Marriage between Blood Relations.

 

8. Products which die in infancy in greater propor-
tion than children born in other conditions.

9. Products which, if they survive infancy, are less
apt than others to resist disease and death.

To these rules there are certainly exceptions which
are attributable either to the health of the parents, or
to their organic conditions at the time of procreation.
Thus, 1. It is seldom that all the children escape the
evil influence. 2. In the same family some are attacked,
while others are spared. 3. Those of the same family
who are attacked are rarely ever seized in the same
manner; for example, one is an epileptic, another is a
deaf-mute, etc.

The researches of Dr. Bemis of Kentucky, are full
of interest. He has shown that ten per cent. of deaf-
mutes, five per cent. of the blind, and about fifteen per
cent. of the idiots placed in the different establishments
of the United States are the issue of marriages between
first cousins. Of seven hundred and fifty-seven mar-
riages between first cousins, two hundred and fifty-six
produced deaf-mutes, blind, and idiots. Of four hun-
dred and eighty-three other marriages of first cousins,
one hundred and fifty-one had sickly children, and many

were sterile. In several States—Kentucky included—
190 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Albinos.

 

laws have been adopted forbidding intermarriage of
cousins-german. M. Briere relates that in a village of
the district of Yverdun, in Switzerland, two brothers
married two sisters, their cousins-german. Both were
peasants, in easy circumstances, and of good health,
with no bad antecedents in either of the families. One
of them had five children, the other, two. These seven
children are all perfect Albinos, with complete discol-
oration of the skin, soft flesh, white, silvery, fine
hair. Their eyelids are agitated with an incessant wink-
ing, and their eyes are of a deep pink, nearly red.
These children, the eldest of whom was then (1859)
twenty years old, present, it will be observed, the most
complete characteristics of Albinism. Three of the
children of the first brother died, one of a fall, the two
others of diseases, the nature of which is not known.
One of the two children of the second brother is also
dead. The father of the five children having lost his
wife, married another, to whom he was nof related, and
by whom he has had four children, all in excellent
health, and presenting no trace of Albinism. This ex-
ample is most conclusive, for nothing is wanting, not
even the counter-proof. The author was struck, when

‘a boy, with the coincidences which existed in several
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 191

 

Physical Anomalies in Villages.

 

small New England towns, in the great number of
physical anomalies contained in them. Idiots, dwarfs,
hunchbacks, imbeciles, cripples, insane, and blind per-
sons seemed to form a considerable proportion of the
small population of these places. He has long since
found the solution of the mystery in the inter-marriage
of those connected by consanguinity—a practice so
universal in small towns, especially before the days of
railroads had opened up communication with the outer
world, and while nearly all the inhabitants were more or
less closely related. We can not dwell longer upon
this subject, at the same time so vast and so interest-
ing, without transcending the limits and the scope of
this work. We can but reiterate the warning, that the
practice is against the laws of God and man, and there-
fore unnatural, criminal, and revolting. In the absence
of penal enactments on the subject, the inherent pun-
ishment should deter every well-informed person from
the commission of so great an imprudence.

There is, however, another condition generally neg-
lected in the formation of marital alliances, to the great
detriment of the children who may result from them,
and which it is our duty to indicate in this connection.

We allude to the “crossing” of temperaments, constitu-
192 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Who may Marry.

 

tions, and peculiarities in such a manner that the prod-
ucts may be withdrawn from all danger of hereditary
taints, and, by the mingling of the different attributes,
peculiar to each of the parents, may escape all organic
vices of conformation. Listen, on this subject, to the
words of an authority who is without a superior in
these matters: ;

“ Marriages, in the physical point of view, should be
so combined as to neutralize, by the opposition of con-
stitutions, temperaments, and idiosyncrasies, the ele-
ments of morbid inheritance possessed by the parties.
The union of two lymphatic, or of two evidently nerv-
ous subjects, should be forbidden. Two families equally
predisposed to pulmonary affections ought never to
mingle their blood. There is the same danger in the
union of two subjects affected with general debility,
etc. A predisposition to analogous affections consti-
tutes, in the eyes of the physician, another incompati-
bility in marriage. Scrofula and consumption would
form a sordid nursery; while a woman issued from con-
sumptive parents, but married to a robust and healthy
man, may become the happy mother of a valid genera-
tion, which, crossed in its turn with blood of good alloy,

will produce another generation which shall be alto-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 193

 

Transmission of Organic Peculiarities.

 

*

gether irreproachable; for the propensity to hereditary
maladies ends by exhausting itself. Stahl, Bordeu,
Buchan, Pujol, Baumés, Gintrac, and P. Lucas think
thus. Unthappily, physicians are not consulted in the
composition of laws, and nothing is stipulated in our
codes in favor of the physical amelioration of the human
race, save the limitation of marriage to certain degrees
of consanguinity, and the epoch of legal nubility.”*

It is a matter of common observation, that parents
communicate to their descendants a more or less strik-
ing resemblance in organization, which often extends
even to the moral and intellectual qualities. It is this
which constitutes the fact of inheritance. “ Indeed,” says
M. Levy,} “inheritance shows itself in man both in his
general form and in the relative proportion of its parts.
It is manifested by the intimate properties of the or-
ganic fiber, if one may use that expression; motions,
attractions, features, tone of voice, functional peculiari-
ties, all testify to the lively relation which is continued
between the product and its producer, even after the
separation of the new being, who, emancipated from
uterine incubation, is beyond the reach of its individu-

© Michel Levy, Traité d’ hygiéne publique et privée. Paris, 1857.

t Op. cit.
17
194 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Transmission of Defects.

 

ality. We do not say that procreative beings exactly
repeat themselves in their progeny, but they impress
upon it, with life, a portion of the particular direction
that life has taken with them. That which appears
most obviously to have been transmitted from the
parents to the child, is the physical type, the external
conformation, the physiognomy, the form, the color.”
There were Roman families called Nasones, Labeones,
from the salient feature which denoted the hereditary
influence. Temperament, idiosyncrasies, general char-
acteristics of the organism, are all transmitted, equally
with external resemblances.

Original defects and deformities are often transmitted,
such as blindness, deafness, imbecility, idiocy, hare-lip,
hernias, etc. All authors cite examples of individuals
with one or more supernumerary fingers and toes, from
father to son, for generations.* Burdach tells of a
father and son who had each twelve fingers and as

many toes. Van Derbach mentions a Spanish family,

* We remember a comical scene at which we assisted, many years
ago, when a gentleman, ecstatic in the first glories of a father, in-
quired of us if we had discovered any peculiarity in the hands or
feet of his cherub, then lustily responding to the first application
of soap and water. We assured him there was “nothing wrong
with the baby,” but he clearly intimated that “something would be
wrong”’ unless we should discover an odd number of fingers or toop—
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 195

 

Crossing of Races and Temperaments.

 

forty members of which had an extra number of fingers.
Science teems with similar facts.

Adrien de Jussieu communicated to two learned soci-
eties, m 1827, an interesting case of hereditary con-
formation. A woman presented three breasts, one of
which, “situated in the groin, ordinarily served for
nursing her infant.” The mother of this woman had
likewise three breasts, but with this difference, that
they were all situated in the front part of the chest.
Well-known cases are on record of accidental mutila-
tions transmitted to offspring. With the lower animals
this phenomenon is not infrequent.

The predisposition to diseases is a sad and last proof
of the bond which unites the successive yenerations of
the same family. The best manner of correcting mor-
bid hereditary predispositions, such as consumption,
gout, cancer, scrofula, etc., is the crossing of races
and temperaments, in order to establish a sort of com-
pensation between the negative qualities of one organ-
ism, and the excess, in an opposite sense, of the other,

that none of his family were ever born without an extra number. To
satisfy his droll anxiety we made the search requested, and there,
sure enough, was the little supernumerary, branching out at a right
angie from its legitimate fellows! Our friend drew a long sigh of
relief, and—kissed his wife. Several subsequent children bave been
equally pleasing to their indisputable progenitor.
196 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Nuptial Contamination.

 

whence results, in the last analysis, a profitable propor-
tion for the offspring.

Dr. Serrurier, of Paris, who has devoted a life-time
to the elucidation of this question, advises: “Let every
one consult his physician in this matter, and be not
-afraid to learn the truth from his lips; encourage him,
even, to explain himself categorically. Such is the
duty of fathers and mothers. It is an act of humanity
which every family should perform. The physician, on
his part, from the importance of his ministry, ought to
act with all the sincerity of his conscience, and to place
himself as an impartial judge between the families,
rejecting those alliances of which the consequences can
be only fatal to one or both of the parties.”

The transmission ef disease to offspring is not the
sole danger to be Apprehended from incompatible mar-
riages. Besides those contagious diseases which are so
readily transmissible in sexual congress, sad examples
of which are constantly before physicians, it is now a
well-established fact that, by a sort of chronic poison-
ing, consumption is communicated even to those who
were apparently the least predisposed to it. This nup-
tial contamination daily counts its victims unsuspected

by the community, because public attention has scarcely
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 197

 

Faulty Conformations.

 

been directed to the fact, the opinion of physicians
being seldom sought in the conclusion of marriages.
It is enough to declare the existence of the danger to
awaken attention to the subject.

Nor can we sufficiently stigmatize those instances in
which the stupidity of society allows women to be mar-
ried who, from faulty conformation of the pelvis, or by
reason of some organic disease, are almost sure to fall
victims to the ravages of childbirth. Ordinary pru-
dence would seem to dictate that families should seek
the counsels of medical men in all cases where there is
the slightest suspicion of any infirmity incompatible
with the normal accomplishment of the end of mar-
riage—the propagation of the species. In the absence
of enlightened views upon this subject, the whole mat-
ter, unfortunately, is left to the decision of chance, the
deplorable consequences of which are matters of daily
observation.

We are often asked if there are any means of deter-
mining, in advance, the sex of offspring. We answer,
unhesitatingly, No!—so far as voluntary influence is
concerned, and yet extended observation and study
have conducted us to a theory which appears to be

well founded. In brief, our conclusions are as follow:
198 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Sex of Offspring.

 

1. The sex of the progeny of given parties will de
pend upon the relative vigor of their sexual organiza-
tion.

2. If the man be the stronger in this regard, the
children will be girls, and vice versa.

3. Where the organizations are equally balanced, the
circumstances attending the particular act of fecunda-
tion determine the result. So the sexes of the children
of such unions are apt to be pretty equally distributed.

We do not propose, nor is this the arena for a dis-
cussion of the considerations which have led us to form
these conclusions. We merely state them in this con-
nection, and invite attention to the subject, confident
that they will be found correct. We wish to anticipate,
however, a single objection that will probably be raised
in the circumstance that statistics prove that, in the
whole number of births, boys are in excess of girls, and
that the preponderance of males is considerably greater
for legitimate than for illegitimate births. So far as
this touches our theory at all, we see nothing contra-
dictory; for certainly the fathers of illegitimate off-
spring are ordinarily the most passionate of men.*

* There isa theory recently started, by certain respectable authors,
that the children conceived within the first six days after the cessa-
tion of the monthly period, are girls, and those ‘conceived after the
" SATAN IN SOCIETY. 199

 

Influence of Moral Conditions.

 

The influence upon offspring of the moral disposition
of the parents at the moment of procreation is a sub-
ject of vast interest and importance. Thus, it is a fact
of common remark, that “love children” are often
physically and mentally of rare perfection. So the
earlier children of a marriage are apt to excel those
born at a time when the parents seek only the grosser
gratification of the senses in their approaches, divested
of the sentiment of their younger days. The genera-
tive function is intensified by gayety, contentment, and
in fact by all the expansive emotions, while depressive
emotions, as trouble, fear, and anxiety, paralyze it. In-
tellectual labor and violent emotions repress it. The
power of the imagination is demonstrated in all that
relates to the pleasures of love. Astonishing proofs
are extant of the intimate physiological relation between
every thing pertaining to generation and the simple
imagination. Treviranus tells of a woman whose breasts
were distended with milk whenever she heard the
cries of a newly-born infant. It occurs often that
physicians are summoned to labors where all is real,
save the presence of an infant. This has happened

ninth day, are boys. We confess to a want of confidence in this the-
ory, but give it “for what it is worth.”
200 SATAN IN SOCIETY. *

Imaginary Pregnancies.

 

several times in our own observation. We were
personally cognizant of the following case: A woman,
married late in life, mistook the “change of life” fox
pregnancy, and passed through all the usual symptoms
attendant upon that condition, including enlargement of
the abdomen, tumefaction and pain in the breasts, morn-
ing nausea, and even swelling of the lower extremities.
At the expected “term” regular pains occurred, exactly
simulating those of labor, and physician and attendants
were summoned to this cxtraordinary scene where
nothing was wanting, save the presence of a baby.
Pichon cites the case of a woman of forty-eight, who
lad not menstruated for four years, and who, while
assisting at the bedside of a sister during a long and
painful labor, was seized with pains absolutely similar
to those she was witnessing. Some hours after flooding
commenced, which continued several days, after which
the breasts became swollen, and furnished an abundant
secretion of milk. The author himself attended a
woman in labor whose sister, a woman of forty, married,
but sterile, was taken with simulative labor-pains so se-
verely that she had to be removed from the scene.

The influence of marriage upon longevity is a ques-

tion which has given rise to much dispute. While sta-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 201

 

Longevity of Bachelors.

 

tistics would seem to show that the average of bachelors
die earlier than married men, we are inclined to think
that the fact is attributable to other circumstances than
continence. In order to show the contrary it would be
necessary to prove continence, or at least to select for
the comparison bachelors whose known habits of life
would tend to that presumption. In fact, they are very
often men of irregular and dissolute lives, in which
continence is certainly not an element. The following
table from M. Casper * would seem to sustain our po-
sition. Of many hundreds of celibates who had attained

their seventieth year, there were found of

Priests, . . . . . . . « 42 per cent.
Agriculturists, . A . . 5 - 40 ae
Merchants and Manufacturers, . a # - 35 *
Soldiers, . . . so « 7 8 . 32 ce
Clerks, ‘ a A A * a a . 32 “e
Lawyers, . . . . . . . . 29 se
Artists, i . . . 4 . z « 28 oe
Teachers, % ts . . é % . 27 we
Physicians, . . . . . s é . 24 eG

That which is certain in this table, is that the priests
were celibates, and that which is melancholy is that the
poor physician whose life is devoted to prolonging that
of others, finds himself at the foot of the macrobiotic

* De V influence du mariage sur la durée de la vie humaine. Par

le docteur Casper.
202 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Continence and Longevity.

 

scale. Let no one contend that continence is incompat-
ible with health or longevity. It is the argument of
libertines, of those who seek a pretext for excesses of
every sort, of those who would evade the plainest dic-
tates of reason and common sense. It is certainly op-
posed to sound physiological views. Nature has decreed
_that the act of reproduction shall be expensive to the
individual, so she surrounds it, in all cases, with some-
thing more or less of danger. In most vegetable, and
in certain animal organizations, the accomplishment of
this act is followed, more or less speedily, by death.
In certain instances the male expires in the embrace.
All tends to prove that the propagation of the species is
the final law assigned to all living beings. As though
apprehensive that the intelligence of man would inform
him of the danger, and lead him to refrain from the
duty imposed on him, Nature has hidden its perils under
the most alluring attractions. His mind, his heart, and
his senses provide him with the most powerful excitants
to the generative act, but that he may be at the same
time capable of accomplishing it and of realizing its
pleasures, she has imposed rules which he can not in-
fringe without greatly enhancing its perils. There are

symptoms closely allied to epilepsy in the crisis of the
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 203

 

Genius or Children?

 

venereal act, and in rare cases a veritable epileptic con-
vulsion. Vencreal excesses, on the other hand, are
proverbially fatal. So it follows that, in obeying the
law imposed upon him, man, no less than other animals,
expends somewhat of his vital forces. Certain physi-
ologists have even maintained that Nature only permits
the male to survive the grand act of his existence in
the interests of the resulting progeny.

If the retention of the reproductive materials within
the organism, so far from being injurious, be even neces-
sary during the period of puberty, it would seem that,
other things being equal, it should not be detrimental
during nubility. In fact, if these materials accumulate
to excess, Nature furnishes arcady and efficacious means
of discarding them. With those who allow the function
to remain long disused, however, the elimination of the
fecundating fluid but seldom occurs. The secretion is
well-nigh abolished, and the organism profits by the
economy of forces thus attained. Severe mental labors,
the pursuit of science, and protracted physical exertion
exercise a profound influence upon the genital sense.
A learned author has said that one must choose between
leaving to posterity works of genius or children. La

Fontaine who well understood these matters, declares :
204 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

No Excuse for Libertinism.

 

Un muletier a ce jeu vaut trois rois. Without doubt,
there are certain erotic temperaments which constitute
altogether exceptions to the rule we have laid down,
and with whom celibacy, without the employment of
the most strenuous measures, is morally impossible ;
but whenever it exists this temperament is an idiosyn-
crasy, real or acquired, most frequently the latter, and
is as amenable to proper treatment as any other mor
bid condition. We do not wish to be understood as
advocating celibacy or perpetual continence —all that
we have said elsewhere should exonerate us from such
a suspicion—but what we insist upon is this: that the
pretended dangers of continence are purely imaginary;
that in the state of marriage there are periods when
protracted continence is absolutely necessary, and that
these periods are salutary no less for the husband than
for the wife. From these propositions which, we think,
are sufficiently established, there results the important
conclusion that under no circumstances can valid pre-
texts be devised for resorting to vicious practices,
whether as regards the marriage bed or the establish-
ment of illicit relations.

We have not thought it necessary to touch upon the

effect of continence upon the female organism, because
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 205

 

Mother’s Marks.

 

it ic scarcely admitted as a question. Too many in-
stances are within the knowledge of all to render any
defense of the proposition necessary, that the state of
continence is positively innocuous for women. The
dangers of this condition, so feelingly portrayed by cer-
tain medical writers, have been proven not to exist.
The influence of maternal impressions, during preg-
nancy, upon the physical and mental peculiarities of
children is a question which science has long held in
disdain. Unable to explain the phenomenon, medical
men have obstinately refused to entertain its existence.
Popular prejudice, however, has accorded to it a faith
and credulity impossible to destroy. For our part, we
are disposed to occupy a middle-ground between the
vulgar notions on the one hand and the incredulity of
science on the other. If, in the love of the marvelous,
the people have strangely distorted the facts, science
has even refused to admit the facts themselves. We
readily conceive the influence upon the offspring of
- “longings” on the part of the mother in “marking”
her child with the impression of a grape, a fig, a straw-
berry, or a peach, but we can not conceive how those
parts of the body already formed, can undergo a change

or destruction under the influence of any emotions how-
206 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Imaginary Resemblances.

 

ever vivid. So we can believe that certain portions of
the skin may resemble that of the animal which has
frightened the mother; we can not believe that the limbs
and features of the animal can be substituted for those
of the “human form divine.” The emotion of fear and
of other violent impressions may cause those “ arrests
of development” which occasion monstrosities, nearly
all of which defects are found in the middle line of
the body. Such are the hare-lip, the cleft palate, the
spina bifida, the divided cranium, the lack of separa-
tion of the eyes, etc. These occurrences are any thing
but marvelous when it is considered that in the devel-
opment of the foetus the median line is the point which
is perfected the last, and that the least obstacle to the
junction of the two halves of the body, may occasion
these abnormal conditions. It is no uncommon thing
to hear that such or such a woman has been delivered
of an ape, or a dog, or a child with the head of a
horse, etc., but the least investigation is sure to reveal
that the imagination of the people has invested some
one of these imperfect developments with a purely fan-
ciful resemblance. Dr. Belouino relates the following
case, which shows very well how these absurd rumors

often arise: “ We remember to have attended a woman
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 207

 

Marked with a Pear.

 

during her confinement, who was in a state of great inqui-
etude because she had seen a monkey. As soon as she
beheld her infant, she, as well as some others who were
present, declared that it resembled that animal. We
vainly endeavored to convince her that the resemblance
was purely imaginary. It was only after several days
that she abandoned the idea. A month afterward we
heard that this woman had been delivered of an ape,
which immediately commenced to gambol about the
room, and at length hid himself under the bed.”

The author has often been told by mothers that they
“expected their children would be marked,’ but only
now and then has the expectation been realized. It has
occurred sufficiently often, however, to convince him
that there is “something in it.” The following is a
remarkable case in point: We were assured by a young
woman, pregnant with her first child, that “the baby
would be marked with a pear.” We were skeptical, but
her conviction was unshaken. We delivered her, at full
term, of a daughter in all respects perfect, save that a
hard, pear-shaped tumor was attached by a sort of pe-
duncle to the fore-arm. This we removed by a ligature,
and the specimen is still in our possession.

A singular result of married life has, it seems to’ us,

‘
208 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Acquired Resemblances.

 

scarcely attracted the attention it deserves, and yet it
is of common observation. We allude to a certain de-
gree of mutual resemblance of feature and expression
which parties long married acquire. There is evidently
something more than mere coincidence in this resemblance,
since it is so often remarked, and usually develops only
with time. In reality, there is nothing surprising in the
fact, as the influence of the emotions upon the physiog-
nomy is so well known. It is upon the knowledge of this
that the whole science of Lavater is based. As the same
vicissitudes ordinarily affect both the husband and wife,
it is altogether natural that the muscles concerned in ex-
pressing the resulting emotions should impress similar
modifications upon the countenance of each. But, in
our view, there is an additional and far more interesting
reason for this resemblance, which we mention with
some diffidence, inasmuch as, so far as we are aware, it
has never hitherto been noticed. During the whole pe-
riod of ante-natal existence the child derives the ele-
ments of its growth and development from materials
furnished by the mother through the circulating me-
dium—the blood. But the child is not all mother, as it
certainly partakes also of the physical nature of the
father. Now, the blood, in passing through the econ-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 209

 

Theory of Mutual Resemblance of Man and Wife.

 

omy of the infant, while parting with those ingredients
necessary for its growth and sustenance, must receive,
reciprocally, something of the individual nature of the
new being; that is to say, of the father himself. This,
in turn, it communicates to the mass of blood circulat-
ing in the mother’s system; so that, in fact, the child
has impregnated the mother with the blood of the
father. Successive pregnancies can only add to the
intimacy of this admixture, and as the blood is that
which supplies and nourishes both form and feature, it
can hardly happen otherwise than that a veritable phys-
ical resemblance should result. If this be true, and we
see nothing unreasonable in our hypothesis, the expres-
sion of Adam, “bone of my bones, and flesh of my
flesh,’ becomes of literal significance, and the beauty
and intimacy of the marriage relation are infinitely en-
hanced. It would also perfectly explain the otherwise
mysterious resemblance, so often remarked, between
the children of the second marriages of women and
their first husbands—a resemblance which often extends
to minute physical and mental peculiarities. It would
also seem that this theory is corroborated by the facts
known to stock raisers as the “breeding back” of ani-

mals. We can barely indicate here, however, what can
18
210 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Man is soon Weary of mere Carnal Pleasure.

 

be scientifically discussed only on other fields. We are
prepared for such encounter should our position be
assailed.

In conclusion we have to consider marriage in another
point of view, that is to say, esthetically. It has been
said that “man does not live by bread alone.” He has
not only physical, but intellectual and moral wants
which no less imperiously require satisfaction. He has
not only the right, but the duty of seeking this satis-
faction under the penalty of sinking to the level of the
brute, and of failing in the accomplishment of his des-
tiny. The sentiment of art causes him to seek the
beautiful and the good. In all that he fashions he aims
at perfection; all his efforts tend to personify himself
in his works, and he allows to matter the least possible
share in the value of his productions. THe does not
otherwise in love. Carnal, gross pleasure, disengaged
from all participation of the heart, very soon becomes
for him a source of disgust, and an object of repulsion.
We is only really happy in the spiritual possession of
the loved being, and this happiness, comparable to
none other, is the only one of which time can not de-
prive him. Marriage has, consequently, a doable end,

applicable to the dual nature of man—the procreation
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 211

 

Translation from Proudhon.

 

of the species, and the gratification of his love of per-
fectibility. Says Proudhon: “Love, then, as soon as
it is determined and fixed by marriage, tends to free
itself from the tyranny of the organs. It is this impe-
rious tendency (of which man is warned from the first
day by the fatigue of his senses, and upon which so
many persons build such wretched illusions) that the
proverb expresses: ‘Marriage is the tomb,’ that is to
say, the emancipation, ‘of love.’ The people, whose
language is always concrete, have intended here by love
the violence of desire, the fire of the blood; it is this
entirely physical love which, according to the proverb,
is extinguished in marriage. The world, in its native
chastity and its infinite delicacy, has not wished to reveal
the secret of the nuptial couch; it has left to the wis-
dom of each one the care of penetrating the mystery,
and of profiting by the instruction. It knows, however,
that veritable love begins with this death; that it isa
necessary effect of marriage that gallantry shall change
into worship; that every husband, whatever he may pre-
tend, is at the bottom of his soul idolatrous; that if there
is an ostensible conspiracy among men to shake off the
yoke of the sex, there is a tacit agreement to adore it;

that only the weakness of woman obliges man to resume
212 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

The Married and Celibates contrasted.

 

the empire from time to time; that with these rare ex-
ceptions the woman is sovereign, and that therein is the
principle of conjugal tenderness and harmony.”

Love in marriage is not only a state of domestic hap-
piness, which every one should seek in preference to all
the other elements which ordinarily enter into matrimo-
nial combinations; it is, as we have already shown, one
of the most powerful influences which bear upon the qual-
‘ities of the progeny. ‘The children of the most natural
and happy marriages, that is, marriages of inclination,
are, other things being equal, those who exhibit phys-
ical and mental qualities in their greatest perfection.

Marriage, then, properly regulated, exerts a power-
fully beneficent influence upon the individual, and con-
sequently upon private manners. Unlike the bachelor,
whose leading characteristics are selfishness, narrowness
of views, eccentricity, and obstinacy, the married man
allies himself more closely to the grand interests of
society, is animated by sentiments of right and justice,
readily submits to the authority of law, shares in the
general happiness, and holds aloof from visionary con-
templations and sterile reveries.

“The conjugal union,” says Burdach, “engenders

the desire for children, for it is in itself, as it were, a
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 213

 

How Marriage saves from Debauch.

 

repetition of infantile life; the woman cares for her
husband as a mother would do, and the husband directs
her, protects her, and nurses her as if he were her
father. In giving each other the names of “father”
and “mother” respectively, parties long married ex-
press the cordiality of their union. It is thus that
marriage attaches to life by love, and thus the majority
of those who cut short their existence through disgust
for life are celibates.”

Finally, marriage is a remedy against debauch, in
that it moderates the violence of sexual inclinations by
the facility of gratifying them. It also, for the same
reason, prevents excesses and economizes the forces
during the time that the woman is inapt for conjugal

approaches.*

* Just as we close this chapter, we have received by mail a
printed circular advocating the claims of one of those mechanical
contrivances, to be “ worn’? by women as a protection against con-
ception. The best commentary on the state of public morals, and
proof of the urgent necessity of our work, is this: the scoundrel
who sends this circular ranks as a respectable druggist, and boldly
signs it with his name and address in full. Horrible and inconceiv-
able cupidity! But, more horrible still, he relies upon physicians to
introduce it. We know of more than one “reputable” physician
who supplies this invention of hell to his female patients !
214 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Regeneration of the Race.

 

VII.
WOMAN WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY.

[XO follow the progress of religion is to arrive at the

philosophy of history; for human events are so in-
terwoven with things in the religious order that the
thread of the great changes which have transpired in
the world, of the rise and fall of empires, of every
grand and prominent epoch worth regarding in the past,
is thus, as it were, unraveled. Isolated historical facts,
systems of nomenclature and dates, may, for this rea-
son, be disregarded as utterly void of enlightenment,
and almost useless for future guidance. Viewing things
in the aggregate, the particular is absorbed in the gen-
eral, and the Hand of God is shown above the things of
this world, ruling, and governing, and molding with
ineffable wisdom and strength, and pushing forward
toward one mighty and mysterious end, the absolute

perfection and regeneration of fallen humanity. So
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 215

 

The Fall of Adam and the Redemption.

 

those occurrences which, to our restricted vision, appear
contrary to the designs of our Creator, nay, we had
almost said contrary to His wisdom and goodness, are
effaced in the grand harmony of the whole, and, like
the irregularities of the earth’s surface, interrupt not
its general accuracy of outline.

Above all, dominating the history of the world, two
facts stand forth as the key to all our difficulties, the
light in all our darkness, the source of the degradation
as well as of the glory and noble progress of humanity.
These facts are the fall of Adam and the redemption.
We must become downright infidels ere we venture to
deny either the facts themselves, or their relation to
human history. The first, a human fact, tends to de-
grade humanity, to push it further and further into the
depths of infamy and woe; the second, a Divine fact,
raises humanity from its decay, and leads it into new
and pleasant ways. Wherever the first still holds sway,
wherever the light of Christianity has not yet pene-
trated, its degrading influence pursues its hellish work
with intense and unimpeded vigor.

Now, as in both these dominant facts woman bears a
decidedly conspicuous part, and as we shall constantly

find her maintaining her “right” to prominent consid-
216 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Eve. ‘The First Marriage

 

eration in the leading events of history, we propose
briefly to glance at these two most important of God’s
earthly creatures. From these, again, we shall descend
to the women of our own times. They stand before us,
the two mothers of the human race, the one by blood,
the other by grace and regeneration—Eve and Mary.
As Eve flashed upon the enraptured gaze of Adam,
freshly turned from the hands of her Divine Author,
what must have been the splendor of her beauty !
what the holiness and purity of her countenance! The
mind is bewildered and mystified in its attempt to im-
agine the perfection of those attributes physical and
mental, which, to this day, man almost reverences in
woman. What wonder that, as the first sentiments of
love, of which the innocence and purity of their hearts
redoubled still the charms, seized both at the same in-
stant — what wonder that Adam exclaimed, “Bone of
my bones, and flesh of my flesh; therefore shall a man
leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto
his wife.”

From this first marriage, which, in that instance at
least, was a sacrament, since God Himself performed
the ceremony, we learn the true nature of matrimony.

Unity, indissolubility, sanctity—all are there. Unity,
SATAN IN SOCIETY. Q17

 

God’s Benediction on Marriage.

 

because the man shall cleave only unto his wife, and
they two shall be one flesh. Indissolubility, for our
Lord Himself, when asked by the Pharisees, “Is it law-
ful for a man to put away his wife for any cause?” re-
plied, after repeating the very words we have quoted,
“What God hath joined together let no man put asun-
der.” Sanctity also, for God Himself blessed them, and
said unto them, ‘Increase and multiply.” Alas for
those unions on which God does not bestow His bene-
diction, and which are not contracted in the design of
obeying the holy obligation which it imposes! Mar-
riage, then, is a Divine institution, the first of all sac-
raments, the foundation of society, the guarantee of the
happiness of woman who becomes a miserable slave if
deprived of the protection afforded her by this Divine
contract. Without it she is the mere instrument of the
concupiscence of the degraded being who drags her
down to his own level; nay, pushes her further still,
covers her with shame and infamy, and tramples her
under his very feet. Wherever woman is not married
in the name of God, she sinks into the slave and the
merchandise of man. We challenge the facts of history
in proof of this. Let us drag them forth. It was La-

mech who, by espousing two wives, Adah and Zillah,
19
218 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Matrimonial Condition of Noah and his Three Sons.

 

first attacked the Divine unity of marriage. Theolo-
gians agree in condemning most especially the perpe-
trator of this act, and certainly there is a vast differ-
ence, in the moral point of view, between him who
establishes a vicious custom and him who, finding it
established, conforms to it. So by some Lamech is
termed “accursed,” by others, “an adulterer.” St.
Jerome says that the Deluge punished homicide and
bigamy at the same time.

In this connection it is significant to reflect that
Noah, “a just man, and perfect in his generations,” and
his three sons as well, had, each of them, but one wife.
So God appears to have tolerated for a season, but never
to have sanctioned polygamy. Even after the Deluge
man bore every-where the fearful scourge of his fall,
and upon woman, above all, did the terrible curse seem
to linger with its most crushing weight. Until the ad-
vent of Jesus Christ she remained, among all nations,
the mere instrument of sensuality or of tyranny. Po-
lygamy prevailed even among the very chosen people
of God. Abraham had several wives besides Sarah, to
say nothing of Hagar, who brought so much trouble
into the family. Jacob purchased a pair of sisters,

Leah and Rachel, not mentioning the two inferior
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 219

 

Who could claim recognition as Mrs. Jacob?

 

women, Bilhah and Zilpah, who, nevertheless, could
each honestly claim recognition as Mrs. Jacob. David
had quite a large number, and Solomon’s little family
embraced not less than seven hundred legitimate wives,
hesides half as many ladies of more equivocal position.

It will readily be conceived that, in such an order of
things, the condition of woman must have been a very
unhappy one, as in fact it was. She was bought and sold
like the beast of burden. She was formally declared
inferior by the civil law, which invaded her most sacred
modesty, and outraged her most tender susceptibilities.*
Repudiation was tolerated freely. A man could put
away his wife for the most trivial cause; nay, simply
the declaration, “I will no more have thee for wife;
thou mayest marry whom thou pleasest,’”’ was sufficient
without further ceremony. But the rule did not work
both ways. Woman had not the same privilege as re-
garded her husband. We do not forget the beautiful
exceptions that the history of those remote times affords.
We can not forget the maternal tenderness of Hagar,
the filial devotion of Jephthah’s daughter, the virtue of
Susan, nor the queenly patriotism of Esther, but these

* Such as declaring her “unclean” during a certain period, and
requiring her to announce the fact whenever the “custom of
woman” was upon her.
220 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Degradation of Woman among the Ancients.

 

are exceptional facts. They simply prove that Omnip-
otent Providence did not permit female virtue to be
utterly extinguished, since he reserved a few such nota-
ble examples.

Not only among the Jewish nation, but with all the
people of antiquity, woman had fallen to the lowest
depths of degradation. In scattering over the face of the
earth to people the universe, men had borne with them,
in their migrations, the memory of the great events
which had marked the commencement of the world.
Throughout antiquity, even among savage nations, we
find the traditions of the original fall. Man, ascribing
to woman the misfortunes of the human race, every-
where lent himself a willing instrument for executing
the pitiless sentence against her. Among the Egyp-
tians so renowned for wisdom, polygamy was prohibited
only to the priests. Marriages between brothers and
sisters were freely allowed. In public processions the
most gross and impure emblems were ostentatiously
paraded. Animals, the most lecherous, were adored as
divinities. Practices too indecent for recital, too horri-
ble to believe possible, were of constant and public
occurrence. The Pheenicians, the Armenians, the Baby-

lonians, the Assyrians, the Carthaginians, the Medes
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 221

 

Stones of the Altar are Bathed with Blood.

 

and Persians, the Thracians, all had laws and customs
relating to woman too revolting and indecent even to
mention. The most innocent of these were the burying
of the living widow with the body of the dead husband,
the sale of a woman for a pair of oxen. Throughout
Asia the same abominations were, and in many places
are still, customary. Polygamy, the purchase of
women, their enslavement, are things no less of to-day
than of antiquity. But that which, above all, proves to
what abjection woman, deprived of Christianity, can fll,
how completely her heart can become abased, her most
natural sentiments abolished, is, that throughout, from
the Red Sea to the sources of the Tigris and the Eu-
phrates, from the shores of Asia Minor to the depths
of India, the stones of the altars are bathed with human
blood, the idols devour the quivering flesh of infants
offered in sacrifice. Go to the caverns of the wilder-
ness, and study the habits of the tigress and the pan-
ther; observe the most ferocious or the most stupid of
beasts; in none shall you find extinguished the sacred
flames of maternal love. From the plant growing in
the soil, from the inarticulate mollusk to the king of
beasts, this conservative instinct, this Divine law,

watches over and protects the newly-born of its
222 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Reason and Intellect not sufficient to Redeem Woman.

 

respective species. To prove that a high state of civ-
ilization, that reason and intellect, in their fullest devel-
opment, are not sufficient to redeem woman from abjec-
tion, servitude, and folly, we have but to review the
society of Greece and Rome, where intellect shone with
all the éclat of which it is capable. Adultery, polyg-
amy, incest, promiscuity of the sexes, legal prostitution,
murder of infants—these horrors existed in the midst
of a cultivation and intelligence such as the modern
world has not yet achieved.

Greece, the land of scholars, of heroes, and of sages!
What hosts of glorious names—names redolent of ele-
gance, of culture, and of genius—crowd upon the lips
of him who would attempt the enumeration of those
giants of intellect! What a pompous cortége defiles
under the porticos of Athens and upon the shores of
the Eurotas! Menelaus, Lycurgus, Solon, Leonidas,
Socrates, Plato, Alexander—great men, immortal by
your glory, your wisdom, or your genius—come forth
from your tombs and tell us what you have accom-
plished! Sterile efforts of genius, vain noises of re-
nown, vanity in all its forms—this is your history!
What have you done for the women of your times?

At Sparta, O Lycurgus, what was woman under thy
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 223

 

Corinth. Lais. Aspasia. Nameless Crimes,

 

boasted teachings? Was she a virgin? She was with-
out modesty. Wife? She had no love. Mother? She
had no children. What was she then? The prostitute
of the Republic!

Let us visit Athens; but tarry, as we journey, at
Corinth—the Venice of the ancient world—the rich
city—the city of beautiful skies—the rendezvous of
travelers, of men of arts and of letters. Two seas
lave this populous city—it is the key of the Pelopon-
nesus and of Attica. From its heights we can behold
Athens, and beyond the seas the summits of Parnas-
sus and of Helicon. Grand thoughts, noble virtues,
pure manners must surely cluster under skies so auspi-
cious. Alas! woman here is but the-voluptuous cour-
tesan—cmbellished, ornamented with all the beauties of
art, with all the charms of science. Here Venus holds
her court—a thousand courtesans the priestesses of her
temple. In this school were formed Lais, Aspasia the
Milesian, and all those celebrated beauties of whom
Athenzeus has recorded the history. The rendezvous
of Greece and Italy, Corinth saw successively within
her walls all that antiquity produced of great men, of
celebrated women. Yet it is of Corinth St. Paul could

say she was guilty of “things not so much as named
224 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Athens. Condition of Women in that Sgendid City.

among the Gentiles, that a man should have his father’s
wife!” As we press onward, pause before this narrow
pass, and let our imagination people once again these
solitudes. We shall behold Xerxes seated upon this
lofty eminence, viewing the combat of giants in which
a handful of Greeks accomplished the most sublime
efforts that man has ever made for liberty.

Arrived at Athens—the country of sages, the cra-
dle of letters, the mother of ancient civilization—than
which the world contains no spot richer in glorious
memories—where not a foot of earth but covers the
ashes of a great man—not a stone which has not had
its place in temple or palace—not a broken statue
which does not speak of Praxiteles or of Phidias—not
a shattered column which has not echoed the voice
of sages, the lessons of Socrates, of Plato, of Zeno—
arrived at Athens, let us conjure the shades of the
past and inquire of them, What was woman in the
midst of all this glory, of progress in art and science,
of such high civilization? Was she honored? Was she
loved as she should have been among a people so wise,
so renowned? Alas! Socrates had two wives! Plu-
tarch, in his life of Solon, informs us that certain

women, dissatisfied with their husbands, might console
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 225

 

Power of Phryne, Aspasia, and other Courtesans.

 

themselves (ste) with such of his relations as they
should select.

Lais, Aspasia, Phryne saw at their feet the greatest
men of Greece—Socrates, Alcibiades, Praxiteles, Peri-
cles. These women study philosophy at the academy,
pose themselves in the studio of the sculptor, inspire
the genius of orators! Remarkable for their talents
no less than for their beauty, they—courtesans though
they were—realized all that reason and intelligence,
without Christianity, can do for woman. It was Phryne
who inspired the chisel of Praxiteles. Transformed into
a goddess, the courtesan received upon the altars of
Greece the prayers and incense of worship. Cotytto
had her altars at Athens and Corinth, under the title
of “Popular Venus.’ Aspasia decided peace or war,
directing the counsels of Pericles. Glycera was immor-
talized by the painters of Sycion. Demosthenes—fiery
tribune of the people—cast himself at the feet of Lais.
The same Phryne, model for the Venus of Praxiteles,
seduced, by her charms and her eloquence, the judges
of the famous Areopagus, before which she had been
arraigned for her monstrous indecencies. That tribunal,
so famed for its impartial justice—that Areopagus, so

holy that it was claimed the very gods appeared in it!
226 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Poor Human Nature left to Herself.

 

But in all this wonderful Athens—while the courte-
sans enjoyed such privileges and immunities—the poor
wives were confined at home, plunged in ignorance, and
chained in slavery. Occupied in their Gynaeceum—
literally, “woman-place”—with the cares and labors
peculiar to their sex, they received no education, and
in intelligence and culture were completely beneath
their husbands, who were themselves the most culti-
vated persons in the world.

What a state of society—where courtesans were edu-
cated, honored, and worshiped, while legitimate wives
were ignored and despised—where the only women
condemned to misery were those who bore the title of
wife and mother! Throughout all Greece there was
very nearly the same state of affairs as at Corinth and
Athens. Paphos, Cytherea, Cnidus, Golgi, Idalium,
Amathus, Miletus, Cos, and Sparta are all names of
cities which recall the shame of woman. Indeed and
indeed, poor human nature, left to itself, can produce
only brilliant vanities; and the most sublime efforts of
reason, unguided by Christianity, are powerless to
rescue woman from her decline—to elevate her to the
rank which is naturally her due.

‘
But how with the ancient Romans? Surely, this
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 227

 

Absolute authority of the Roman Pater Familias.

 

wonderful empire, after having subdued all the nations
of the known world—destined by Providence to prepare
the way for the grand Christian revolution—surely, this
astonishing nation, so chivalrous and brave, so learned
and noble, must have endowed woman with her just
and proper sphere—must have honored her with an
almost reverential respect ?

Alas! a conglomeration of the customs, the religious
practices, the institutions, and the manners of all other
nations is the answer to our question. From the foun-
dation of their proud city, conquest was their leading
idea. The Roman citizen was, in his essential quality,
a proprietor. His house, his land, his slaves, even his
wife and children—they stole their earliest wives—were
placed under the dominion of his sword. He had con-
quered all, he might dispose of all, without reserve,
without restriction. Thus the head of the family, the
pater familias, was invested with absolute authority
over all his possessions. The right of life and death
for his slaves, his wife, his children—the right to
sell them, to banish them, to expose them, to con-
demn them, to slaughter his offspring—such was the
“right”? which the Roman lord held over his family.

All property bore the name of mancipium—manu
228 SATAN IN SOCIETY,

 

Mancipatio. Powers it Conferrea

 

captum, conquered by the hand—and the character of
the thing possessed was that of being i manu—under
the hand—of the possessor.

So, with the Romans, the hand was the symbol of
power. He possessed whatever he took or made to pass
under his hand by means of formalities termed manet-
patio. Mancipatio—which conferred civilly ownership
of things or persons—gave to the possessor a power
equal to that which he would have had if he had ac-
quired it by conquest. ITlere, in a nutshell, lies the
foundation of the whole Roman “right,” a brutal, mate-
rial, and despotic right, but calculated, in its very
nature, to give immense power to the State, by the con-
centration of authority, tending in all things toward
unity. Long .after the establishment of Christianity
this Roman right preserved the impress of the brutal
Quiritine power, and it was, perhaps, to this strong
and vigorous institution that Rome owed the empire
of the world. It is easy to imagine what must have
been the secondary position, what the state of slavery,
what the moral abasement of woman in a society where
brute force was the essence of law. Beginning with
her very cradle, the father of the family might kill

her at her birth, “expose” her, sell her as a slave,

a
SATAN IN SOCIETY. _ 229

 

The Status of Woman in Rome for Three Centuries.

 

“emancipate” her; that is, place her from under his
hand; in a word, he might turn her out of the family
in utta1 destitution,at his pleasure. If he gave her in
marriage without “ emancipating” her, she remained his
property. Then he might demand her and her children
from his son-in-law at any time, “For,” says Ulpian,
“we acquire by the persons who are under our power.”
Conjugal tyranny was carried to the extreme of rigor.
‘If he desired, the husband might prolong his tyranny
even beyond the grave, by appointing for his widow a
“guardian,” who had the same rights over her as he
himself once had. But then there was another law,
which, though arbitrary and tyrannical, worked better ;
it compelled “old bachelors” to marry the widows,
whose number was becoming excessive. Of course, there
were numerous instances of generosity in those “good
old times;” for example, Coriolanus, when banished, ex-
torted a promise from his wife to espouse a more for-
tunate husband.

Such, for three centuries, was the status of woman in
ancient Rome—a being entirely secondary; useful only
because she gave children to the Republic, and watched,
in-doors, over the welfare of the household. (We have,

alas! some modern Quirites among us, who can see no
230 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Effect of the Law of the Twelve Tables.

 

further use in the world for woman than the old domes
tic tyrants in question. Their numbers are fast dimin
ishing, glory be to God!) During all this period, how
ever, there seems to have existed a sort of rigid purity,
no less among men than among women. Ceaselessly
occupied in war, in agriculture, or in the forum, the men
of those days thought but little of amorous intrigues.
Those who attempted to indulge themselves in that sort
of amusement were ridiculed, or despised, or put to
death. As for poor women, they were so absolutely
under the®power and control of their owners, be they
husbands, fathers, guardians, or what not, that they were
virtuous perforce. Nothing less than the fall of a
throne, and the exile of the greatest king the Romans
ever had, could avenge Lucrece; so the libertine had a
“hard road to travel’ in those days. The law of the
Twelve Tables, though designed to remedy, only ag-
gravated the existing evils. From bad to worse, the
most frightful corruptions fermented at length in that
vast body, composed of parts so heterogeneous, soiled
with so many crimes, sick with so many plagues.
Crimes till then unknown in the history of nations, be-
came of common occurrence. What we have said of

Rome may be taken as the fair average type of man-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 231

 

Statement of Pére Lacordaire.

 

ners preceding the advent of our Lord. ‘We find, in
the words of Pére Lacordaire, an eloquent French
divine, a reswmé of the history of woman outside of
Christianity: “Man has accumulated against his com-
panion all that he was capable of inventing of hardships
and privations. He has taken her captive; he has cov-
ered her with a veil; he has hidden her in the most
secluded portion of the house, as a mischievous divinity
or a suspected slave; he has contracted her feet from
her infancy, to render her incapable of walking and of
carrying her heart wheresoever she pleased; he has
burdened her, like a servant, with the most painful
tasks; he has denied her the instruction and the pleas-
ures of the mind; he has taken her in marriage under
the forms of purchase and sale; he has declared her
incapable of inheritance from her father or mother; in-
competent to give testimony; incapable of the guardi-
anship of her own children, herself reverting into
guardianship on the dissolution of her marriage by his
death. The perusal of the various pagan legislators is
a perpetual revelation of her ignominy, more than one
of whom, carrying defiance to the extreme of barbarity,
has constrained her to follow the corpse of her husband,

and to enshroud herself upon his funeral pyre, ‘in
232 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Commencement of the Story of Halgerda.

 

order,’ say the statutes, ‘that the life of the husband
shall be secured.’ ”

Did our limits permit, we should delight in reproduc-
ing here some of the curious legends of antiquity,
which present the most striking pictures of the man-
ners of pagan nations, many of which attest the noble-
ness of heart preserved by women, even in the practice
of the most barbarous superstitions. We can not resist
translating that of Halgerda:

“Upon a Scandinavian island there lived, with her
father, a girl beautiful of feature, tall of form, haughty
of heart. Her hair was so magnificent that it descended
in ringlets far below her girdle. Her name was Hal-
gerda; she was also called Langbrok, which signifies
male virgin. Thorwaldus, of the neighboring country,
asked her in marriage from her father. The conditions
were named; the father accepted them, but without
speaking of the matter to Halgerda, for he feared her
refusal. The matrimonial compact concluded, the son-
in-law paid over to his father-in-law the price of the
mundium.

[The mundium was the power of the head of the
family over its members, and when he transmitted his

power to the husband the latter paid the price of it.]
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 233

 

Betrothal by her father without her Consent. |

 

Thus Thorwaldus bought Halgerda, and, the affair ter-
minated, he returned home.

“The next day Halgerda was thus accosted by her
father: ‘Thou art betrothed to Thorwaldus; I have
received the price of the mundium.’

“<T see now,’ replied she, ‘that thy tenderness for
me is not what thou hast pretended, since thou hast not
deemed me worthy to be consulted in this matter.’

«“¢And I, replied her father, ‘I do not accord to
thy insolence the right of opposing my agreements, and
if we are divided in sentiment, it is my will and not
thine which shall prevail.’

“<¢My father, thou and thy race are of a proud spirit;
is it surprising if I imitate my family ?”

“ After these words she withdrew, and, seeking her
preceptor, Thiostolfus, a man of inflexible and savage
character, she related to him her grievance.

“<Take courage,’ said he to her, ‘thou shalt be mar-
ried again, and that time thou shalt be consulted.’

“The union was celebrated, and a month later a
quarrel arose, in which the husband, in a moment of
rage, struck her in the face, drawing blood.

“Halgerda sat down before her dwelling with bleed-

ing face and wounded spirit. Her preceptor, Thiostol-
20
234 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Murder of her Husband, Thorwaldus.

 

fus, passed, and, seeing her in this state, asked: ‘ Whe
has treated thee thus?

“¢My husband; and thou, my preceptor, wast not
there to defend me.’

“¢ At least I will avenge thee.’

“Some hours after Halgerda saw him returning, hold-
ing before him an ax stained with blood.

“<¢Thine ax is stained with blood,’ said she, ‘ what
hast thou done ?”

“¢T have done that which will enable thee to espouse
another man.’

“<¢Thou sayest, then, that Thorwaldus is dead?

“<T say it.’

“Without another word Thiostolfus departs and seeks
asylum with a relation of Halgerda, and she, returning
to her apartments and opening her casket, draws forth
some jewels, which she distributes among her servants,
who are all weeping at her departure, and then directs
her steps toward the country of her father.

““¢ Why,’ said he, on beholding her, ‘ does thy husband
not accompany thee ?’

“¢Ffe is dead.’

“< How?

“<By the hand of my preceptor, Thiostolfus.’
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 235

 

The Father changes his mind. Halgerda consulted.

 

“¢What is done, is done,’ said the father.

“Two years elapsed, and Glumus, a wealthy inhab-
itant of a neighboring island, came to ask the hand of
Halgerda.

“¢T ought to inform you,’ says the father, ‘that a
former marriage, which I imposed upon my daughter,
did not terminate very pleasantly.’

“c¢That shall not deter me,’ replies Glumus; ‘the
destiny of one man is not that of all.’

“So be it; but, before all, Halgerda must know all
the conditions. She must see you, and the acceptance
or refusal must be left to her own decision.’

“Halgerda appears; she is attended by two women;
a blue mantle of very fine texture is thrown over her
shoulders; about her form shines a silver girdle, around
which is entwined her long hair, falling on each side of
her breast; her head is gracefully inclined toward all
who are present; she asks, ‘What news? Glumus
arises: ‘I have visited your father,’ says he, ‘to obtain
you for my wife, if such be your pleasure.’

“¢T recognize you,’ replies Halgerda, ‘as an eminent
man; but, first, I wish to know the conditions of the
contract.’

“Glumus having enumerated to her the propositions
236 -- SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

God extends His protecting Arm over the World.

 

made on either side, ‘My father,’ says Halgerda, ‘ you
have this time acted so generously with me, that I shall
accede to your wishes.’

“<Tet us, then, sign the contract,’ says Hoskuldus,
‘my brother and I will call witnesses to our promises,
but thou shalt be witness for thyself; thou shalt prom-
ise by thyself alone.’

“The marriage was celebrated by a royal festival, at
which the preceptor assisted, his ax upon his shoulder,
and the pair departed for the country of Glumus.”

Many were the melancholy dramas enacted among
northern nations, resulting from the exclusion of the
woman from her own betrothal; we also find this in-
iquitous law, in all its rigor, among the ancient Franks
and Germans.

It was time that God Himself should extend the pro-
tecting arm of His mercy over the world, or it was
indeed lost for eternity. His Spirit descended upon a
virgin, and woman, source of evil here below, was chosen
to bear a prominent part in the regeneration of human-
ity. Yes! the angel of God descends from heaven to
utter those words, which eternally thereafter both the
heavens and the earth shall re-echo: Ave gratid plena,

Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 237

 

All Theogonies mention a Virgin Mother,

 

Ideoque et quod nascetur ex te sanctum, vocabitur Filius
Dei, Hail! full of grace, the Lord is with thee!
Blessed art thou among women! Therefore, also, that
Holy Thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called
the Son of God! Then, in the fervor of prophecy,
which nineteen centuries have fulfilled, she exclaimed,
“ Henceforth all generations shall call me Blessed!”
After the fall of our first parents, God had promised
that a virgin should bear a Son who should be the Re-
deemer of the human race. The memory of this prom-
ise had been preserved among all nations. All Theog-
onies contain mention of a virgin mother, either as a
fact accomplished or a hope to be realized. For the
God of the Indians, in order to save the world, is fabled
to have rendered Himself incarnate in the bosom of a
young girl, the betrothed of a sovereign. She was
regarded as the purest and most beautiful of women.
The most revered dééss of the Chinese sprung from the
contact of a flower. Buddha was claimed to have been
borne by a virgin named Maha-Mahai. The Brahmins
assert that when a god becomes incarnate he descends
into the bosom of a virgin by an operation of divine
power. The Druids lived in the expectation of this

miraculous event. Thus did this primitive revelation
238 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Advent of the Redeemer gladdening all Faithful Hearts.

 

traverse all times and countries, following nations in
their distant migrations, and though more and more ob-
scured by the shadows of idolatry, it remained, never-
theless, as a monument of ancient belief and Divine
promise. How strange it is that this convincing proof,
if any were needed, of the authenticity of the Scrip-
tural narrative of the birth of our Redeemer, should
have been adduced as evidence of its fabulous origin!
But there was a people in the midst of whom the
flame of this Divine revelation burned unceasingly in
all its splendor. The history of the Jewish nation pre-
figured and rehearsed the future. Its poetry was full
of prophecy; inspired voices resounded upon its mount-
ains; the entire people awaited with sublime confidence
the advent of a Divine Liberator, who should be born
of a virgin.

Promised then by God Himself, announced by all
prophets, foreshadowed by the facts of history, this
capital event at length transpired, gladdening all faith-
ful hearts, above all that of woman, who felt that the
hour of her emancipation had dawned.

The child of their old age, her parents, Joachim and
Anna, loved Mary with peculiar tenderness. Ney-

ertheless, obeying the decrees of Providence, they
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 239

 

Description of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 

consecrated her to Almighty God, and her earlier years
were passed in the service of the temple. History
and tradition alike inform us that she excelled all her
young companions in her intelligence and skill at their
work. The Church at Alexandria long preserved the
spindles of cedar wood, with which she wrought so
skillfully, that the Orientals, to this day, call “ threads
of the good virgin,” those little gossamer nothings
which cover the prairies in the morning, and as day
advances traverse the valleys, and fly away on the
zephyrs, like flecks of whitest snow. In personal beauty
the Virgin Mary represented in its perfection the ideal
type of woman, which a Raphael, a Corregio, or a Michel
Angelo might dream of, but could never attain. St.
Denis, the Areopagite, who had seen her, says: “She
was of a dazzling beauty, and that he should have wor-
shiped her as a goddess if he had not known that there
is but one God.” St. Epiphanius, writing in the
fourth century, from traditions and manuscripts then
extant, thus traces her portrait:

“Tn stature she was above the medium; her hair was
blonde; her face oval; her eyes bright, and slightly
olive in color; her eyebrows perfectly arched; her

nose aquiline and of irreproachable perfection, and her
240 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

The Sublime Type of the Christian Woman.

 

lips were ruby red. The ardent sun of her country had
slightly bronzed her complexion ; her hands were long,
and her fingers were slender.”

The Jewish law compelled her to be married, despite
her vow of perpetual virginity, but Joseph, a noble arti-
san, descended from a long line of kings, was chosen,
among many aspirants, to be the fortunate possessor of
this flower of the royal race. The pious child passed
then from the holy precincts where dwelt her young
companions to the abode of the carpenter of Nazareth.
Joseph was at least fifty years old when he espoused
Mary. He was as a father to her, and respected her
vow, as is proved by her remonstrance to the angelic
salutation, “How can this be, since I know not man?”

Behold, then, in this Blessed Virgin the sublime type
of the Christian woman—the sum of all the virtues, of
all the merits, which should rehabilitate her sex! The
first woman lost the race by her fall. Mary contrib-
uted to its rescue by her faith and by her submission to.
the Divine will. As a virgin she honored one of the
most beautiful virtues of woman; as a mother she nour-
ished a Redeemer. She gave to the nations an example
of the most beautiful maternal devotion, of the most

magnificent grief which history affords.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 241

 

The Voice says, ‘‘ My Kingdom is not of this World.”

 

In a world abandoned to despotism and sensual-
ity—where the civil law was the supreme rule which
crushed every aspiration under its power—where re-
ligion was of and under the state—where kings and
magistrates were the priests—where nothing was more
sacred than country, nothing higher than force, noth-
ing more binding than law—where the gods were but
the tools of the state—in such a world a mighty
voice suddenly resounded, “My kingdom is not of
this world”—words which sounded the death-knell of
despotism—words which forever divorced Church and
State—words which proclaimed liberty of conscience
to all. The Christian religion taught mankind that,
beyond any thing that men can do, there is a supreme,
eternal, immutable Zruth, without which all is vanity,
error, and folly. Man thenceforth was in possession
of a standard by which he could judge the purity of
laws and institutions. Force was dethroned from its
dominion. No longer the supreme law, it was but
the representation of God—the interpretation of truth.
The divine legislation announced, “ Whosoever shall be
chief among you, let him be your servant,” and thence-
forth, under the reign of Christianity, power was an

obligation, royalty a trust, and they who governed
21
242 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Christianity Forbade Divorce as well as Polygamy.

 

were no longer the masters, but the servants of the
people—truths which should forever endure as fixed
principles, eternal as “the years of God.”

From the first the new Dispensation redressed the
wrongs of woman, surrounded her with a halo of
respect, and re-established the holy institution of mar-
riage. But yesterday the vile instrument of the pleas-
ures of man—his slave, his concubine, or his mistress—
to-day the object of his tender respect, secure from
impurity even of thought! Chaste before God, imi-
tator of the virtues of Mary, freed from the anathema
of ages—the equal, nay, the superior of man.

The Christian religion forbade divorce as well as
polygamy—it restored to marriage its indissolubility,
its unity, and its sanctity. It was no longer a purely
carnal association—no longer a mere concession to the
gross appetites of fallen man—it was the primitive
union in all its purity. Man and woman were united
to mutually assuage the asperities, and to bear together
the duties, and cares, and toils of life—to rear in holi-
ness the blessed fruit of their union.

But the revolution went further still: it made honor-
able provision for that large class who, from preference

or from any other cause, remained unwedded. Virginity,
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 243

 

Virginity no longer a Reproach but an Honor.

 

hitherto regarded as a reproach, became an honor. She
who renounced the world, and marriage, and maternity,
and devoted her life to her Savior, became! the mother
of all unfortunates, of all whom grief and misery as-
sailed, those sons of God and brothers of Jesus Christ.
As mother, woman once again loved her children, reared
them in piety, devoted her life to their education; as
wife she was once more the companion of her husband;
as virgin she sped to the couch of suffering, and put
forth the most active and perilous charity, in those early
ages of the Church, when the sword and every tor-
ture were so roughly used against Christians. Nothing
could stay the transports of these daughters of the Sav-
ior—victims to their gratitude and love for Him who
had delivered them from bondage. They eagerly poured
out their blood upon the scaffold, and gayly reposed
their bodies upon the flames. Their delicate limbs were
crushed and mangled in the most horrid tortures, but
their tranquil and calm souls breathed only of peace
and happiness. Kneeling upon the scaffold, mangled
by wild beasts, bathed in blood, they seemed, in their
sublime courage, in their ineffable sweetness, like verita-
ble angels from heaven. These creatures, whom an-

tiquity had formally declared too feeble in mind to
244 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Story of Perpetua and Felicitas.

testify as witnesses, became witnesses in the cause of
God Himself, and that, too, not in isolated instances, by
acts of individual courage, as with the pagans, but in
armies of hundreds and thousands,

“Perpetua and Felicitas, the first a mother of a day
and the other still nursing an infant, were sentenced to
combat with a wild cow. Their clothing was removed;
they were cast naked into the arena. At this spectacle,
at the sight of these young mothers, on whose breasts
still lmgered some drops of milk, the people, hardened
as they were, touched with horror and with pity, or-
dered, by loud cries, that their garments should be
restored to them. They were taken behind the barrier,
and some minutes later Perpetua re-appeared in the cir-
cus, covered with a floating robe. The cow sprang
upon her, and stretched her all bleeding upon the sand.
The young martyr quickly arose. For what purpose?
To re-adjust her robe, which, torn in the attack, had
partially exposed her person, and also to re-bind her
disheveled hair, for it was not proper that in the day
of her victory a martyr should have the face covered
as on a day of mourning; then running toward her
companion, Perpetua took her by the hand, and the

two, erect and united, presented themselves a double
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 245

 

Absolute and Divine Prohibition of Divorce.

 

victim to the beast, who dispatched them together.”
Another: a young girl of sixteen smiled upon the ruf-
fian who was lacerating her body by the lash. The
judge ordered the punishment suspended, and, wishing
to find something more cruel still, delivered her to a
drunken soldier. “Since thou hast only a soul,” said he,
“T will punish thee in thy soul. In the absence of
weakness thou hast still virtue.”

But it was against divorce that the Christian religion
warred with its whole power. This scourge of marriage
was denounced by Jesus Christ Himself, in words too
plain to admit of cavil: “Whosoever shall put away
his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her
to commit adultery; and whosoever shall marry her that
is divorced, committeth adultery.” Saints Matthew,
Mark, and Luke report nearly the same language.
Here we have an absolute and Divine prohibition of
divorce, save in the exceptional instance cited. It is
this reservation which has been so often invoked, in
modern times, in favor of divorce, but it is equally plain
that our Lord only sanctioned separation, not that di-
vorce which breaks the sacred bonds; otherwise He
would not have said, “Whosoever shall marry her that

is divorced committeth adultcry.” To give this passage
246 SATAN IN SOCIETY,

 

Quotations from the Greatest Primitive Authorities.

another meaning is simply to be blinded by that condi-
tion which finds only what it desires to find, sees only
what it pleases to see.

The greatest primitive authorities insist upon this in-
terpretation. St. Paul himself says: “And unto the
married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, let not the
wife depart from her husband. But and if she depart,
let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her hus-
band; and let not the husband put away his wife.”

Hermas, writing in the first century, says: “The
husband who has sent away his wife shall not marry
another.” Tertullian, in the second century, speaking
of the custom of the Christians, says: “We separate,
but can not marry again.” Athanasius, in the year
178, in his “ Apology for the Christians,” says: “Let
each of you remain single, or in one only marriage, for
second nuptials are a specious adultery.” St. Jerome,
in the fourth century, an authority acknowledged by all
Christians, says: “It is ordered to the husband to send
away his wife (if adulterous) in such a manner that he
can not marry another.”

From these authorities—and hundreds may be cited—
it is clearly shown that the utmost stretch of the Divine

law admits only of separation, and never of abrogation,
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 247

 

Ambiguous Position of Mr. Smith.

 

of the marriage tie, save only by death. Hence it is
‘clear that, measured by the standard, the civil law has
not the right to decree a divorce a vineulo, (from the
bonds,) but only a mensa et thoro, (from bed and board.)
In doing more than this it not only imperils the State,
which depends on the family, but commits a crime
against the immutable truth, and falls into practical ab-
surdity. For example: Mrs. Smith complains of Smith,
and the civil law gravely decrees a divorce a vineulo as
regards herself, but a mensa et thoro as regards Smith.
Mrs. Smith becomes Mrs. Jones, but poor Smith can

’ says the civil law, “you have one

not marry; ‘for,’
wife already.” “No,” says Smith, “Jones has her.”
“No,” says the now very uncivil law, “she is Mrs.
Smith for you if you attempt to re-marry, but she is
Mrs. Jones if you don’t.” So like the game of thim-
ble-rig, “Now you see it, and now you don’t,” the be-
wildered woman has two husbands, or she has only one,
and can not for her life decide which of the two is
the real one. Yet such is the law of our country to-
day. Down to the present moment the same proposi-
tion is demonstrable: wherever the light of Christianity
has not yet penetrated, the condition of woman is not

sensibly different from that of bygone ages.
248 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Brief glance at the Chinese. . Smal Feet

 

Let us briefly glance at that nation so proud of its
antiquity; that nation from which certain modern phi-
losophers are wont to adduce so many arguments and
falsehoods against Christian civilization. These wise-
acres would have us believe that outside of Christianity
a great people has achieved a degree of civilization
which, to a certain extent, justifies their pseudo title of
Celestials for themselves and of barbarians for the rest of
us. Let us inquire into the condition of woman in this
highly civilized country, the land of the great Confucius.
From the earliest times the Chinese have regarded
woman as an inferior being. As a necessary conse-
quence she is subjected to humiliation and slavery.
Polygamy has always existed. One wife only is legiti-
mate; the others are inferior. The husband may repudi-
ate his wife on the most frivolous pretext. An instance
is related, on good authority, where a divorce was granted
by the tribunal because “the wife had filled the house
with smoke, and scolded the dog so that he was fright-
ened!” Every one knows that the Chinese ladies of
quality have their feet retarded in development by
being compressed in machines during childhood, but
every one does not know that the horrible custom arose

from the still more horrible intention of thus compelling
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 249

 

A Chinese Barnum could make a Profitable Investment.

 

them to remain at home. Nor is this the only kind of
disfigurement practiced by the Celestials. When they
wish to produce a monstrosity worthy the attention of
some Chinese Barnum, they prepare a sort of vase, open
at top and bottom, in which they imprison the person
of some one of the numerous “foundlings” in such a
manner that the head and legs only can protrude, As
the growth proceeds, the shape is molded to that of the
vase, which, after some years, is removed by breaking
it, and the horrible “specimen” is ready for sale.

The birth of a daughter is regarded as a misfortane,
and a Chinese gentleman considers as an insult the
question if he has any daughters. Infants are numer-
ously murdered and exposed, especially if girls. Ve-
hicles traverse the streets to collect the bodies of infants,
and carry them off for interment, pell-mell, dead and
alive, in one common ditch.

The widows have but one method of escaping the
slavery of forced re-marriage; it is to devote themselves
to the worship of Fo, and to become bonzesses, and the
bonzesses or priestesses are courtesans.

In Japan the condition of woman is very similar.
She lives in a sort of seraglio, where she receives only

the rare visits of her own relations. If the husband
250 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Japan. Burmese Empire. Hindostan.

 

wishes to be divorced he does not put her away; he
simply condemns her to a separate apartment and mar-
ries another. For a breach of chastity the husband has
the privilege of killing her. The Japanese are polyga-
mists. As to the babies, the father may kill or sell them
at pleasure. In the island of Formosa, in addition to
all the rest, women, before their thirty-sixth year, are for-
bidden to rear children. The crime of abortion, so fash-
ionable in our own country, is enforced by law upon all
under that age. Jn the Burmese Empire, where the
women are not shut up as in China and Japan, their
manners are exceedingly dissolute, and practices prevail
which can not be mentioned. At Siam wives are freely
bought and sold. In Hindostan we still find women
abased, dishonored as elsewhere. Polygamy, incest,
repudiation, the right of life and death, all ancient and
modern abuses prevail. The wife is the slave of her
husband, who always addresses her in harsh tones, while
she must speak to him only with formal respect. She
must address him as “ master,” “Jord,” and sometimes
even “my god.” Their religious books declare posi-
tively that man is for his wife a divinity, and that she
needs no other devotion than to be obedient and submis-

sive to him. When a husband dies, his wives, under pen-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 251

 

England Responsible for many of these Crimes.

 

alty of being dishonored, repulsed, deprived of all save
the merest necessities of life, are obliged to die by his
side on the day of his funeral. Hither they are burned
with his body, or, seated upon a stone bench, placed for
this purpose in his grave, they take his corpse upon
their knees, and are buried as far as the neck; then the
air resounds with the cries of the spectators, and the
victims, their heads covered by a veil, are strangled
with surprising dexterity by men skilled in these horri-
ble functions.

For more than a century England has governed
India, and she has not exterminated these atrocious
customs. It is her egotism, her mercantile spirit, which
override her Christianity. She still sells pagodas of
English manufacture to her Indian subjects. Little cares
she for the happiness of her subjects. Her revenues,
an outlet for her commerce, are for her more glorious
than religion, honor, delicacy, or humanity. In these
respects she merits the hatred she has inspired in every
generous breast, in every friend of humanity.

At Ceylon and Thibet polygamy sometimes relates
to the number of husbands. In short, throughout all
Asia woman is considered as inferior, and laws and

customs relating to her differ only in degrees of atrocity.
bo
on
Lo

SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Human Heart is the same Every-where.

 

In Africa, from the Great Desert to the Cape of
Good Hope, from the coasts of Sencgambia to those of
Zanguebar, among the Jalofs, the Foulis, the Mandingoes,
the negroes of the Gold coast, of Congo and of Angola,
among the Jagos, the Hottentots, and all the other tribes,
the status of woman is most deplorable. Yet her moral
degradation is not greater than in the civilized nations
of Asia, for example. It is only because the negro races
are materially more miserable than those who enjoy the
benefits of industry, arts, commerce, of all those elements
which go to make up what we call civilization, that
their abasement seems more repulsive.

In America the thing is not very different; the hu-
man heart is the same every-where; every-where, also,
it obeys either God or the powers of darkness. So with
the aboriginal people of our own continent, whether
civilized or savage, we find traditions from the original
fall, the vengeance of man exhausted upon woman the in-
feriority of the sex. Polygamy, divorce, promiscuity of
the sexes, polyandry, and infanticide prevail throughout.

Between Christianity and paganism there is a relig-
ion which is, so to speak, intermediate; which has bor-
rowed from the former some of its dogmas and its

morality, and from the latter a host of the superstitions
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 253

 

Mohammedism. Effects on Woman.

 

of idolatry. We allude to Mohammedism. With the
Mussulman the position of woman is altogether peculiar.
In the material point of view she is not so unhappy as
with many people whose history we have examined, but
morally speaking she is completely annihilated. It
would seem that the sensuality of the Mohammedans
has aimed to destroy the last vestiges of her moral
nature, leaving only the automaton, the physical being,
the passive instrument of man’s pleasure. Their word
designating a certain class of “wives” has the same
root as another word which signifies wéensil. A Mo-
hammedan has the right to marry as many wives as he
pleases. The rich often have a considerable number.
Surrounded, as they are, by all sorts of precautions, in-
cluding vigilant and argus-eyed guardians, the women
are so corrupt that not only do they practice the most
incredible immoralities among themselves, but they find
means of keeping up intrigues and escapades the most
astonishing. At the slave marts of Constantinople
there are found negresses, Mingrelians, Georgians, and
Circassians. The latter are taken in the raids that the
people of Caucasus make upon each other, or are bought
from their parents. Many of them are very beautiful;

indeed, they spring from the most beautiful type of the
254 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Acomnulation of Fat, a Sine Qua Non.

 

human race. A girl of average beauty costs about the
same, a little less rather, than a horse—say twenty tc
thirty dollars. Once arrived at the seraglio, the young
slave has to undergo a régime which must prove to her
a veritable torture. She must absolutely grow fat, under
penalty of displeasing or failing to please her husband.
Your Mussulman has a singular idea of beauty. For
him a woman is only beautiful when inordinately fat—
so fat that in walking she has to be supported by a
slave on either side. So, to be pleasing, she must drink
without thirst and eat without hunger. In certain parts
of Arabia the young girls are forced to swallow, after
their appetite has been satisfied, several rations of fat
and quantities of camel’s milk. Horrible state of soci-
ety! where each petty despot lives like a bird of prey
in his hole, like a savage beast in his den; where all
the sentiments which bud or develop under the influence
of women in Christian lands are repressed or destroyed ;
where the most abject and disgusting egotism rules;
where love is but gross sensualism ; where paternal, ma-
ternal, and filial affection rise but little above the
instincts of the brute; where woman passes her life
inclosed within four walls, or walks enveloped in a long
veil, like a phantom revisiting a world to which she no
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 255

 

A Mussulman a Human Brute.

 

more belongs. Every one shuns her. She moves si-
lently, sadly, and lonely amid those who treat her as a
slave, as a being without a sdul, without intelligence,
incapable of loving, of feeling, or of suffering. “What
is it to be a Mussulman? A human brute devoured by
egotism, in whom nearly every sentiment is extinguished.
Never for him can sweet memories of the cradle arise
in his heart, for the woman who gave him birth and
provided for the first wants of his existence never
dreamed of his soul; never kneeled by her baby to beg
for him benedictions from above; never directed his
glances to heaven; never taught his lips those sweet
prayers of childhood which ascend, with all their per-
fume of innocence, to the throne of God; nor those
holy names to be invoked when one has need of hope
and of consolation!

To have followed this brief analysis of the history of
woman under the respective influences of Christianity
and of all other systems of religion, is to reach a curi-
ous and at the same time most alarming parallel. As
in ancient Athens, in the absence of true religion and
in the deification of the intellect, the wrongs of woman
were fearful to contemplate, so in the “modern Athens,”

where the same idol is again erected, the wrongs of
256 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Parallel between Ancient and “‘ Modern Athens.’’

 

woman have culminated in a state of things against
which the women of a whole nation are at this moment
clamoring for redress. As from the ancient Athens the
enormities and corruption there practiced spread into all
the countries round about, so from the “modern Athens”
the leaven of infidelity is infecting the land from ocean
to ocean. Immoralities, indecencies, and crimes as re-
volting as ever cursed a nation are of daily and hourly
occurrence. Polygamy, divorce, adultery, promiscuity
of the sexes, infanticide—these things have passed into
our manners. They all maintain their stand openly,
and flaunt their institutions in the face of a government
too corrupt to care, or too timid to oppose. The hosts
of Satan are mustering for the contest which shall de-
cide the possession of our vast domain, and have already
seized upon and occupied certain vantage-grounds and
strongholds, from which it will be difficult to dislodge
them. We adduce the single example of Mormonism,
the great vanguard of the enemy. An article recently
published to the world in the columns of the “ Louis-
ville Courier-Journal,” and thence published in nearly
every newspaper in the land, throws down the gauntlet

as follows:
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 257

 

Letter from Agent of Mormon Mission.

 

AGENCY OF THE MoRMON Mission,
February §, 1870.

“T learn by telegram in your paper that the United
States Government propose to abolish the institutions
of polygamy in all the States and Territories, and to
raise an army of 25,000 men to enforce its unrighteous
enactment. Lincoln called for 75,000 men to suppress
the rebellion, and killed not less than 3,000,000 men,
North and South, in battle, in camp, and in hospital, to
accomplish the result. They declared the rebellion sup-
pressed, and yet keep a larger army and demand larger
estimates to preserve the peace than they thought nec-
essary to suppress the rebellion. Your currency is
trembling in the scales of repudiation, and now you
propose an aggressive war upon a moral basis; a war
against an institution of private life; an institution
sanctioned by the patriarchal ages, with Solomon, the
wisest of men, as its chief exemplar and exponent. To
us who see the undertow of human life, which bears
back into the deep the bubbles that burst against the
shore, the movement is even ridiculous; it does not as-
sume the proportions to threaten. Why, sir, when our
prophets announced their theory of human life it was

received by priest, layman, and the big Church with
22
258 SATAN IN SOCIETY,

 

He attacks some of the Magnates of the Land.

 

mingled jeers and desecrations. It was regarded as
the vagary of a madman. When progressive intellects
rallied around us, and Nauvoo arose in its beauty and
loveliness, a thing of marvel, men guilty of incest and
adultery arose in their madncss and drove us among the
Indians, and into the waste and desert place. We con-
quered the inhospitalities of climate and unfruitfulness
of nature, and we erected in the wilderness temples of
beauty, and clothed the sterile field with a luxuriant and
useful vegetation. And now, Washington City, with
Grant, the butcher captain, at its head, with Sickles,
the murderer of his wife’s paramour, to represent us in
enlightened courts, and Kilpatrick, the raider, with
amours marking his diplomatic career as his torchlight
of temples and dwellings once marked his military path
with its venality, shaming Rome in its most corrupt
days, its hordes of office-holders living on public pap,
feeding on the entrails of a rotten treasury; this con-
glomeration of gambling hells; this protégé of Wall-
street, with Fisk, jr., of the opera-house, the spoiled
first-class actor, as the representative of one Mrs. Grant,
the great exemplar of monogamy; this devil, turned
monk, will now preach and initiate a practical crusade

against polygamy. Let all the monogamists in Wash-
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 259

 

Rapid Growth and Increase of Mormonism.

 

ington City come; let all without the sin of polygamy
come, with rocks in their hands, and, with a corporal’s
guard of saints, we will defy them. I am a missionary
of the Mormon Church, and I know that whereof I af-
firm. Shakerism, without vitality, lingers in your
midst, but Mormonism, like a young giant, has set its
civilization upon the steppes of the Rocky Mountains.
Of ancient race, in its new birth it has grown like the
giant trees of the Western wilds, and now its shadow
rests even upon adulterous Washington. I will say
nothing of our revelation; that is reserved for those
who wish to investigate its claims. Let Grant remem-
ber that it is the grand army of the republic that wins
the fight, and not the millions of stay-at-home patriots,
whose voices are heard and not their bullets. Now,
our force is altogether an aggressive force. It equals
in military, in civil militant, and progressive and de-
fensive efficiency fully five times their number of mere
individuals with inherited sentiments. In progressive
force we have a large majority in the United States.
We can raise five times as many fighting men as the
United States Government can raise for a proscriptive
war. Your forts and arsenals are not threatened; your

authority is not subverted. Your rakes and profligates,
260 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Practical and Theoretical Polygamists.

from privates to major-generals—and they are legion—
will not fight against a practice followed under the forms
of law which they have followed without the forms of
law. One-half of the white men in the United States
are practical polygamists; one-half of all the white
unmarried women favor it. The majority of all your
married men and women, at times, are tired of monog-
amic life. All of the negroes are practical and theo-
retical polygamists. They control all the Southern
States, and efforts will soon be instituted to make it the
fundamental law of all the States. New England is
divided between Fourierism and polygamy. There are
hardly enough Simon-pure monogamists there to plant
as martyrs for the seed of the Church. Washington
City, and New York, and all your populous cities, are
but hollow catacombs of morality, without any solidity.
The Indians covering our plains, and remaining on the
reserves in Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, are polyga-
mists. Hast Tennessee is but a hive of polygamists, a
harem on every hill-side, and in every valley, and the
half of every other State is in statu quo. The regular
enlisted Mormon force is superior to the entire military
force of the United States. You say the rebel force is
but scattered, not subducd. Mexico, with her chap-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 261

 

Downfall of Monogamy Predicted.

 

arral, her mosquitoes, and her roving polygamic hordes,
are our natural allies. Now what can you rely on?
“The monogamic Church? Not at all. The truly re-
ligious are opposed to all wars, and the valiant fighting
men are all polygamists, and will not do the fighting for
the cause of your non-resisting saints. Your Churches
are at war with themselves. You have monogamists
aggressive and polygamists defensive in every Church.
Your house is divided. It can not stand itself; how
make war upon a united moral power, held together by
a common sympathy, progressive tenets, and a common
persecution? To a patriot it may be sweet, in the arms
of victory, for one’s country to die. But what rake or
profligate wants to die because we protect and support
all our wives and they do not? And here comes polyg-
amic China, and the cry from every district is, ‘Come
over and help us labor;’ and the cry is heard in a
raillion vales, and there is now a packing of household
goods and a march to the sea from every city and town.
Soon the swarthy Chinaman will shade every Caucasian
temple, and monogamy will take its place with Shaker-
ism and other obsolete creeds, as the offshoot of a
distempered fancy which had its day, like General

Grant, Mrs. Grant, and the actor Fisk. To enumerate,
262 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

A Militant Power second to none in the World.

 

monogamy has a non-militant majority in the Churches,
perhaps numbering 500,000 fighting men, headed by
Grant, Sickles, and Kilpatrick —500,000. Polygamy
has a regular force organized— 500,000. . Now, our
fighting force can whip five times the number of non-
militants.

“We have as practical polygamists the head of the
monogamic army—General Grant and cabinet, consuls,
diplomats, and naval officers. We have 5,000,000 mili-
tant practical polygamists in the monogamic Church.
Now, add all the negroes, male and female, one-half of
the white females now clamoring for the rights of suf-
frage and debarred from marriage, all females who are
made outcasts for lapses that are considered gallant in
the males, all of the Indians, all the Chinamen present
and to come, and you will find a militant power second
to none in the world. I will add that our agents have
proselytes in every court of Europe—that our system
has advocates in every fireside there. Mormon emi-
gration is coming, with wealth, and intelligence, and
physical vigor, and we bid defiance to every crusade
that originates in the corrupt courts of Washington.
We have not, as has Washington, a soil catacombed
for the graves of illegitimate infants strangled at their
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 263

 

Cheerful Picture of Mormon Cities compared with Others.

 

birth. Our children all receive the fostering care of
the state. The pagan mother of the Ganges dedicates
her child, and custom dedicates the surviving widow to
their gods. Monogamy consecrates its numerous bas-
tards to a secret death and burial, and devotes too often
the helpless maid and widow to prostitution—and you
call that religion. Go through our cities and towns,
and where will you find legalized prostitution, destitu-
tion, child-murder, drunkenness, and profanity among
women, and heartless profligacy, desertion, drunken-
ness, abandonment, infidelity, and wife-beating among
our men? We challenge an investigation. If the tree
be judged by its fruits, we will put the meanest Mor-
mon town, with its raw recruits from a gallant and
unfaithful Church, skilled in amours and liaisons, and
stake our reputation upon a comparison even of raw
recruits with Washington morality. We invite General
Grant to a correspondence. He has as many pens as
we. We have more swords, but we ask him to a pen-
fight. No henpecked husbands allowed to read our
polemics. Tuap. Youne Smrru,

; Secretary Mormon Missionary Board.”

Extravagant as seem the assertions of this “Mr.

Smith,” we behold in them the strength of an enemy,
264 SATAN, IN SOCIETY.

 

Extract from Essay of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe.

 

who thus throws off the mask, and bids defiance to the
friends of God. But let a woman sound the note of
alarm; see if no less a personage than Mrs. Julia Ward
Howe does not sustain our position in her essay before
the “Second Annual Meeting of the Free Religious
Association, held in Boston, May 27 and 28, 1869.”
Her keen woman's wit and her hard common sense
must have struck terror to the hearts of the modern
Athenians. She says:

“But, friends, a sudden reaction comes over me. I
determine to profess and practice the new religion. I
have learned at the free religious club that I possess
the first requisite for this, having never studied any
theology at all. The ex-divines whom I have met there
have so bewailed the artificial ignorance which they
acquired in their divinity school training, that I presume
my natural knowledge to be its proper and desired an-
tithesis. I have read the Bhavadgheeta and Mr. Emer-
son’s poems, the psalms and Gospel of the new faith.
To be no Christian is the next important desideratum,
and I believe that I shall find this, as most people do,
casier than not. My first rule will be, ‘Brahmins, be-
ware of intercourse with Pariahs!’ The three hundred

mearnations of Vishnu, far more imposing in number
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 265

 

Burning of Widows a Matter of Economy.

 

than the single incarnation of which the old theology
has made so much, shall be preached by me both as
precept and example. The Confucian moralities, as
illustrated by Californian experience, shall replace the
Decalogue. Mr. Emerson’s crowning sentence, that he
who commits a crime hurts himself, will, of course, suf-
fice to convert a whole society of criminals and repro-
bates. I will introduce the Joss into prisons, and give
the myth of the Celestial Empire a literal interpreta-
tion. Our railroad and steam-boat system will greatly
facilitate the offering of children to the river, with the
further advantage of offering the parents too. The
strangling of female infants will relieve the present ex-
cess of female population in New England, and postpone
the pressure of woman suffrage. The burning of wid-
ows alone will save the country no small outlay in pen-
sions. Lastly, since the Turkish ethics are coming so
mauch into favor, I should advise a more than Mormon
application of them in our midst. Co-operative house-
keeping could then-be begun on the most immediate
and harmonious footing. And so we will reconvert and
retransform, and true progress shall consist in regress.
“But, as Archimedes asked to get out of the world

in order to move it, we shall be forced to go outside of
23
266 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Laughter sometimes Indicates Pathos too Deep for Tears.

 

Christendom in order to accomplish this revolution.
And if I may believe my friends of the Free Religious
Association, the surest way to do this will be to keep
closely in their midst; for elsewhere, between steam-
boats and missionaries, we can not be sure of meeting
people who shall be sure of not being Christians.

“Perish the jest, and let the jester perish, if in aught
but saddest earnest she exchanged the serious for the
comic mask. Laughter is sometimes made to convey
pathos that lies too deep for tears. I have but faintly
aketched the scene-painting that would have to be done
to-day, if religion could slip back and miss the sacred
and indispensable mediation of Christianity. Take back
the English language beyond the noble building of
Shakspeare and Milton; take back philosophy beyond
the labor of the Germans and the intuition of the
Greeks; take back mathematics beyond Laplace and
Newton; take back politics from the enlargement of
republican experience—you will have yet a harder task
when you shall carry religion back to its ante-Christian
status and interpretation.”

Free Love establishments, Fourierite phalanxes, and
communities of various names are allowed to flourish

in the midst of our modern civilization, unmolested by
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 267

 

The late ‘‘ Anti-Council” at Naples.

 

the civil law, almost unscathed by public opinion. But
within a few weeks, an event, no less typical of the
signs of the times than of the protection ever vouch-
safed to truth by Divine Providence, has transpired in
the Old World. In the city of Naples, a body of men
distinguished for learning and science, eloquence and
culture, but whose only God is their own presumptuous
intellect, assembled in grand convention. The assembly
is called, par excellence, the Anti-Council. It has the
sympathy of the government which encourages its con-
vocation, the sympathy of all throughout Christendom
who hate that Christianity under the shelter of whose
protection they enjoy whatever they possess of happi-
ness and security. Their first speeches and resolutions
proclaim that their real battle is on the side of Satan.
This was going too far. Such avowed infidelity might
“hurt somebody, might even subvert the civil order in its
rebellion against all higher authority. So, at their sec-
ond meeting, an emissary of the government declared
the assembly prorogued. A scattered remnant re-assem-
bled, under guise of a banquet, where, with closed doors,
they delegated authority to five of their number to put
forth a manifesto in the name of the whole. The com-

mittee of five assembled, when one of them positively
268 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Infidelity can not Succeed without the Women.

 

refused to sign any thing which did not contain—we
quote his own words—“a solemn abnegation of God!”
In vain did the president insist that the manifesto advo-
cated by himself and the other three conveyed the same
idea in other words; in vain did he protest that they all
agreed in denouncing God, but that they “should lose
the women, without whom they could never hope to suc-
ceed,” if they denounced God in terms—the gentleman
obstinately persisted in his refusal to have any thing to
do with a “manifesto which should not contain a solemn
abnegation of God,” and so the committee of five came
to grief, and we shall probably never hear further from
the great “ Anti-Council” or its “manifesto.” No, they
can never, never “hope to succeed without the women!”
But shall they have them? Shall woman join the hosts
of Satan who would enslave her? Shall she bow to the
Prince of Darkness who would annihilate her? Shall
she suffer one jot or one tittle to be lost from that only
religion which accords to her the place of a unit in
society? Go to the temples of the ever-living God, and
find there the answer in the hosts of women kneeling at
His shrine, as ready now as in the centuries agone to
attest their faith by their sufferings, if need be by their
blood. And as, on the painful road to Calvary, they
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 269

 

Reform only Possible through Christianity.

 

shamed the cowardice of man by their numbers and their
sympathy, so in the crowds of worshipers who do Him
honor to-day, they, by their numbers and their devotion,
put to shame the indifference and the coldness of man’s
allegiance to God. And for the reforms which they so
justly demand, it is not by the ballot, by political sta-
tion, by mere civil enactments that they are to come—it
is only by their unswerving devotion to a pure and un-
defiled CurisTIaniTy that the needed reforms shall be

achieved.
270 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Physical Differences of the Sexes.

 

VIII.

PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGICAL COMPARISON OF
THE SEXES.

TL is not merely in the organs of generation that Na-
ture has placed the differences between the sexes.
She has deeply engraved them throughout the entire or-
ganization. Woman is distinguished from man under
whatever aspect she is regarded. Differences are mani-
fested in the form, and are apparent to the most superfi-
cial observer. The anatomist encounters them in the
physical exploration of the body, and the physiologist
recognizes them in the character and the functions of each
organ, we might almost say of each fiber. Only the
insufficiency of his means of observation arrests him in
his astonishing revelations, and he is reluctantly obliged
to confess that he can never arrive at the real limits
of the comparison, which, however, he is ever tempted
to project into the regions of hypothesis and pure con-

jecture. The relations of mind and matter may be
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 271

 

Obvious Anatomical Differences.

 

studied almost positively in the integral composition of
the human body; and the anatomist should never forget
that man has a moral as well as a physical existence,
and that a soul, the Divine breath, has inhabited the
organism that he studies, has presided over its move-
ments, has directed its actions.

The most obvious anatomical differences are those
which relate to the external configuration. The relative
stature of woman is less, and her joints are smaller,
the bony protuberances less marked. The head is
smaller, her forehead more depressed, the frontal line is
straighter and more elevated. The chest is shorter and
broader below; the hips wider and more prominent; the
entire pelvis is more voluminous. The trunk of man
resembles an inverted cone, that of woman an upright
ene. The thighs of woman are more oblique than
those of man. Another important anatomical difference
is presented by the windpipe. In man, at the age of
puberty, the opening of the glottis enlarges in the pro-
portion of five to ten; in woman, at the same period, it
increases only in the ratio of five to seven. This ac-
counts for the difference in the voice, that of man
being deep and sonorous, while that of woman is soft

and melodious.
272 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Woman Stamped with Physical Subordination.

 

These anatomical peculiarities, no less than her special
and periodical function, and the very tendencies of her
character, all go to prove that she has not been created

to cope with the exigencies of material life, or to place
in subjection the hostile elements of the outer world.
If we search the entire animal kingdom we shall every-
where find the female stamped with the seal of physical
subordination,* but in none do grace and beauty belong
more especially to the weaker sex than in the human
‘family. On more minute inspection we find other and
still more significant differences. Thus, the brain of
woman is relatively smaller in the anterior and larger
in the posterior regions; the former being the seat of
the higher intellectual faculties, the latter of the affec-
tions, instincts, and feelings. So she has the advantage
in sentiment, man in reason.

Thus we see that Nature has assigned to woman the
part she is to sustain in life. It is the same among
savage nations, and wherever man and woman share the
same labors and fatigues. The relative differences, there-
fore, in no way proceed from the influence of civiliza-

tion. The cellular tissue is more abundant in woman,

* Save in the cases of certain birds and insects.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 273

 

She abounds in Cellular Tissue.

 

and it is this tissue which fills out the skin, effaces the
osseous projections, and affords those soft inflections
and those graceful outlines which impart to her comeli-
ness, and attract our admiration. It harmonizes the
different parts of her body by insensible curves, and
influences the suppleness of her movements by lubri-
cating the organs of locomotion. But, this cellular tis-
sue is regarded as the elementary tissue of organized
bodies, and its greater abundance shows her to be less
advanced in personal development, and destined to pro-
vide for other creations.

“The head of woman differs from that of man in
form, volume, and weight. We believe that the more
the head approximates the spherical form, and the more
it is developed in the anterior lateral regions, the nearer
it approaches perfection. . . . Ancient sculpture,
which did not comprehend phrenology, had at least an
intuition when it expressed this anatomical contrast by
the development accorded to the forehead of Jupiter,
and the contraction of that of Venus. But, if the fore-
head of woman is lower and less capacious, the poste-
rior region of the cranium is larger. It is now known

from the most positive revelations of phrenology, that
274 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Woman Lives Faster, and ‘“ Lives for Two.”

 

to this conformation belongs the greatest depth of feel-
ing, and of nurturing the affections.”*

The bodies of the spinal bones (vertebrae) are longer
and thinner, and the cartilages which separate them
occupy more space; hence the spinal column is longer,
the canal larger, and the spinal marrow more developed.
Now, vital activity is always in direct relation to the
development of the spinal marrow relatively to the other
portions of the body, and in its greater or less predom-
inance over that of the brain, is the degree of relative
inferiority throughout the whole animal series. Woman
generally lives longer than man, although she has less
strength, and is more subject to derangements of
health. She produces more blood; her circulation is
more active; her respiration more accelerated. She
lives faster, and lives for two. Almost her whole ex-
istence is consecrated to the material conservation of
the race. ‘To man belongs the initiative in the work of
generation. He furnishes the animating principle—the
“breath of life’”’—while woman provides the material ele-
ments, and works the longer and more painfully in their
elaboration. The region of the generative organs is

* Histoire philosophique et medicale de la femme, par le docteur
Menville.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 275

 

Greater Influence of the Reproductive Sphere.

 

much more developed, and all its dimensions are larger
than in man. The influence of the reproductive sphere
dominates her entire being. We can scarcely exagger-
ate the dependence of the brain and other organs upon
the condition of the womb. It would seem that all
parts of a woman’s body are so connected that what-
ever transpires in one region is felt immediately in all
the others. One would suppose the genital organs to
be the center of sensorial life, to which the entire or-
ganism is, in a manner, subordinated, so numerous are
‘their nervous irradiations. The ramifications of the
“ great sympathetic” system of nerves establish a keen
and intimate communication between the womb and the
brain, lungs, heart, stemach, and even the breasts, the
lips, and the throat; so when this organ is diseased the
entire organism is troubled, and reciprocally, in serious
derangements of other and distant parts, the womb
sympathizes profoundly. Hence the habitual expression
of women to designate the periodical flow: “I am un-
well.” In man, on the contrary, sensation is limited
by organic resistance no less than by his will, which
holds his nervous system in subjection. In woman,
sensation is like the electric spark—it usurps and tra-

verses the organism, which it rules and masters com-
276 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Woman Consecrated to Propagation.

 

pletely. All her parts are sympathetic, either by con-
tinuity or contiguity of tissue; her very skin is most
highly endowed with the power of spreading and re-
peating in every part that which is felt at a single
point.

Her periodical function is designed to disembarrass
her system of the excess of blood whenever it is un-
employed in generation. Its appearance announces the
period of puberty, and its definite cessation marks the
age when she is no longer apt for conception. Its sus-
pension occurs during pregnancy and lactation, while
its absence at other times is a sign of sterility. Woman
may then be said to be consecrated, during the finest
years of her life, to the propagation and nutrition of
the species. The sentiment of maternity is of innate
force, since it is manifested in the hearts of children.
A little girl of five years was placed in ‘temporary
charge over some children younger than herself, in an

e¢, and when

asylum. She was observed to be weeping,

asked the reason, replied, “ My children are not good.”
A boy would have said “My pupils,” and would have
probably scolded them instead of weeping over them.
The little girl manifests her proclivities in the care

which she bestows upon her doll, and the pleasure she
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 277

 

Differences in the Advent of Puberty.

 

derives from plays which simulate household dutics.
Every thing which relates to material life interests her.
The boy, on the contrary, disdains these kinds of
amusement, and delights in imitating the affairs of pub-
lic life, such as the military art, religious ceremonies,
travels, equestrian exercises, etc., according to his indi-
vidual tastes and temperament.

The advent of puberty in the two sexes is marked
by vast dissimilarity. ‘Woman, in advancing toward
puberty, withdraws more sensibly than man from her
primitive constitution. Delicate and tender, she always
preserves something of the childish temperament;, the
texture of her organs does not lose all of its original
softness. The development which age effects in all por-
tions of the body never gives to them the same degree
of density that they acquire in man; however, in pro-
portion as the womanly qualities become fixed, differ-
ences are noted in her figure and proportions, of which
some did not previously exist, while others were not
appreciable. Although she starts from the same point as
man, she develops in a manner peculiar to herself, and
reaches earlier the last stage of her development. Every-
where puberty is relatively earlier than in man; has

Nature more to accomplish in the one than in the other?
278 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Paternal Love not Natural.

Does the perfection of man cost more than that of
woman? However this may be, man is still evidently
in his childhood, and subject to the laws which govern
that age, while woman already experiences a new kind
of life, and finds herself, perhaps with astonishment,
provided with new attributes, and subject to a new order
of functions, forcign to man, and hitherto foreign to her-
self. From this moment there is discovered in her a
new chain of physical and moral relations, which con-
stitutes for man the principal of that new interest which
shall soon attract him toward the woman, and which has
already become for her a source of new needs and
functions.’”*

Man has a far less exquisite tenderness for his off-
spring than woman. There is little else than moral
sympathy which attaches the father to the infant. Pa-
ternal love does not exist save as a thing of growth, of
education. The sense of proprietorship, a sort of manly
pride is about the extent of a father’s feeling toward
his infant during the first days or weeks of its life.
Not so with the mother; she loves her child as the
fruit of her womb, as the purest of her blood, as her

own life—a thing easily understood. In man the sub-

* Roussel, Systeme physique et moral de la femme,
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 279

 

Nervous ‘Temperament Common in Women.

 

stance of the brain has more consistence, more density ;
in woman, it is softer and less voluminous. In these
numerous organic differences we find the cause of
woman’s greater excitability. She is less given to re-
flection. Every thing which occasions violent emotions
troubles and bewilders her. Man, less sensitive, be-
longs more to himself; for sensibility, while it multi-
plies our relations with the external world, whenever it
passes certain limits, subjugates and delivers us without
a guide to all the hazards of passion. So, says J. J.
Rousseau, “ Woman has more wit, and man more gen-
lus; woman observes, and man reasons.”

The nerves emanating from the spine are larger in
woman relatively to the size of the muscles. She pre-
sents all the characteristics of the nervous temperament,
and has, consequently, its advantages and defects. In
fact, there is far less variety of temperament among
women. They seem, in this respect at least, to be cast
more in a common mold than men. It would seem
that, in the designs of Providence, each man has to fol-
low the paths of a special destiny, and consequently is
endowed with special aptitudes. The common destiny
of women does not exact those profound and essential

differences among them which are remarked among
280 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Masculine Women and Effeminate Men.

 

men. But, as the feminine nature is exceedingly im-
pressionable, there are observed a host of superficial dif-
ferences arising from education, manners, and customs,
and from all the general causes which affect the second-
ary qualities of beings. There is now and then a woman
who, in constitution and proclivities, may be considered ag
an exception to the rule. Strongly constituted, endowed
with intellectual qualities superior to her sex, with broad
and high forehead like a man, she is a sort of mistake
of Nature. Such women are generally wanting in the
qualities which inspire the love of man, and so, as in the
harmony of things force must be united to weakness,
these masculine women nearly always ally themselves
with blanched males, weak physically and mentally, capa-
ble of receiving the authority which their wives needs
must exercise. The parts are simply reversed, that is
all, but the phenomenon is not pleasant. Nearly every
prominent advoeate of Woman’s Rights now before the
public, is of this class, and, if married, she is thus
coupled. If it were consistent with politeness we could
specify these coincidences, ad nauseam.

The temperament of woman exposes her to the most
singular inconveniences and inconsistencies. Extreme

in good, she is also extreme in evil. She is inconstant
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 281

 

>
Contradictions of Female Character. e

 

and changeable; she “will” and she “won’t.” She is
easily disgusted with that which she has pursued with
the greatest ardor. She passes from love to hate with
prodigious facility. She is full of contradictions and
mysteries. Capable of the most heroic actions, she
does not shrink from the most atrocious crimes. Jeal-
ousy can transform this angel of peace to a veritable
fury. She poisons her rival as readily as she would
sacrifice her life for him she loves. She is terrible in
vengeance. By turns gentle and imperious, timid and
apprehensive from a sense of her own weakness, she is
capable of superhuman courage. Man is more brave,
woman more courageous. Moved by a resolute will,
man comprehends danger, measures, and faces it.
Woman calculates nothing; she sees the end, and will
attain it at any price. If she be unskillfully thwarted
in her imperious desires, her fickleness is changed to
obstinacy; you shall crush her sooner than reduce
her.

Popular excitements, the terrors of superstition, the
intoxication of political fanaticism, are propagated among
women like a veritable conflagration. They are more
merciless, more bloodthirsty than men— witness the

frightful memories of the French Revolution, and the
24
282 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

» The Indeterminate adds a Charm.

inveterate hatred displayed in our late civil war. On
the other hand, when exalted by generous sentiments
they become sublime, and leave men far behind them.
Artemisia and Lucretia are types without masculine
analogues. Man is absolutely incapable of love so dis-
interested and ardent as that of Heloise.*

It is a woman, Magdalen, who personifies repentance;
another, Theresa, who personifies devotion; another,
Joan of Arc, who personifies political enthusiasm.
Woman carries sentiments and passions to their utmost
limits, precisely because of the facility with which she
yields to novel influences. There is something fuga-
cious and indeterminate in her physical organization;
something intangible, which adds to her means of se-
duction by provoking the desires. The sentiment of

modesty, inherent in her nature, operates in the same

* It is time to rescue the history of this unfortunate love from the
injustice of the popular version. One thing is certain, the unwill-
ingness of Heloise to be married, her preference to remain the mis-
tress of Abelard, and her denial of the marriage relation equally
arose from purely disinterested love. She feared, simply, to injure
his genius, to retard his development, to extinguish “ that brilliant
torch which God had lighted for the world.’”’ Hence her first letter:
Si uxoris nomen sanctius ac validius videret, dulcius mihi semper
extitet amicae vocabulum; aut si non indigneris, concubinae vel
scorti,
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 283

 

~
Woman is in more Intimate Relation with Nature.

 

way, by surrounding her, as it were, with a sort of
misty veil.

The cohesion of her parts is less, and her whole body
softer and more flexible. Her skin, “the limiting organ
of the individual,” is thinner, smoother, less compact,
more elastic, and is destitute of those little hairs which
interfere with sensibility. When she loses the freshness
of youth, when the firmness of the skin and delicacy
of color diminish, the increase in her general propor-
tions preserves the charm of her form, and although
her organs lose their flexibility, she is still graceful in
her movements, and carries a certain winning attractive-
ness even into old age.

Atmospheric influences, temperature, and electricity
exert a far more powerful influence upon woman than
upon man. She is in more intimate relation with Na-
ture. Her instincts are stronger, while her personal
intelligence is less. She readily achieves many things
by instinct at which man arrives less surely by reflec-
tion. Man is guided by calculation and personal inter-
est, woman by passion and feeling. Man sees the truth,
woman feels it. Ask advice from a woman, you get a
prompt “yes” or “no,” but if you force her to analyze

the principles of her opinion, she may either ignore
284 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Woman Understands Individuals.

 

them, or give but very poor ones, but the conclusion
will be correct notwithstanding. Little accustomed to
the severe exercise of logic, debarred by Nature from
rigorous deductions of ideas, she is moved, like the
poet, by inspiration. Ask a man, on the contrary, and
he proceeds slowly ; he must ask questions; must know
the pros and cons; ere he can enlighten you he must
enlighten himself; he must “think about it.”

The faculty of knowing others and of knowing one’s
self depends upon reason. J emale penetration is with-
out a parallel in judging individuals; it is worth but
little in judging the race. A woman comprehends ad-
mirably the men of her acquaintance, she does not com-
prehend man. “The greatest study of mankind is
man,” yet of this science woman is profoundly ignorant.
Women possess an incredible consciousness of their own
feelings, and even of their own physiognomy. The
maneuvers of coquetry, the science of glances, of in-
flections of voice, and of gestures reveal to us a being
who is self-conscious even to the most minute details of
her life. One would almost believe that a mirror invis-
ible to others, always reflected her to herself; but to the
“know thyself,” in its large, philosophical sense, she is

an entire stranger. It ought to be thus, moreover, for
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 285

 

She has the Genius of Charity.

 

the genius of analysis almost always excludes that of
synthesis. The illustrious Geoffrey Saint Hilaire said
of Cuvier, “ When we walk together in the gallery of
monkeys, he sees a thousand monkeys where I see but
one,” and so with man and woman; to one the genius
of the individual, to the other that of the race.

She has far less idea of justice than man. She rev-
els in distinctions, preferences, and privileges. Her
self-love is wounded if lost in the crowd; she can not
bear to pass unremarked. This is why justice which
tends to the abolition of rank, is to her insupportable.
For her, aristocracy is in the natural order of things.
Systems of metaphysics, abstractions, general ideas,
politics, and equality are therefore indifferent to her.
There is only one method of introducing them to her
intelligence; it is in making them reach’it through her
heart. Depict to her the sufferings of individuals aris-
ing from social inequality, and then, but not till then,

she is clamorous for the “rights of man.”

The justice
of man is the charity of woman.

While to man belongs the physical strength which is
necessary for the cultivation of the soil and for his own
defense, woman possesses the suppleness and dexterity

requisite for minute works and domestic details. She
286 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

She excels in Minute Works.

 

does not seize objects with as much force, but she han-
dles them with more skill and delicacy. Her small
hands and attenuated fingers enable her to wield the
needle.” In painting she excels in miniature. We are
forced to conclude that she is destined for light and
easy work, and that she thwarts the designs of Nature
whenever she engages in exercises which call for the
employment of considerable strength. So we can never
behold woman condemned to rude labor, as among semi-
barbarous people, without the deepest pity. Under the
dominion of this custom they gradually lose their femin-
ine attributes, and, without acquiring any of the character-
istics of manly beauty, they,one by one, are divested of
their own peculiar graces, and fall into a condition of pre-
mature senility—recognizable neither as men nor women.

Woman measures less space in walking, and accom-
plishes long marches with greater difficulty, but her step
has a grace and lightness which man’s can never equal.
In general, her organs are relatively smaller, and by
compensation, of keener susceptibility and of finer or-
ganic texture, which give them the advantage in oper-
ations requiring less of receptivity and force than of
quickness and acuteness. The globe of her eye is

smaller, and the lens more convex, so that if she re-
. SATAN IN SOCIETY. 287

 

Inferior in Metaphysics.

 

ceives fewer rays of light she can see more closely.
Skillful to distinguish delicate shades and minute differ-
ences, she has difficulty in estimating the proportions
of distant or voluminous objects. Her ear is smaller,
and the canal more constricted, but this canal is round
rather than funnel-shapedy it narrows less abruptly;
hence, if it admits less noise, if it loses distant sounds,
those which it does receive reach the membrane of the
drum more directly, and she can distinguish the tone of
the faintest sounds. Her organs of taste and smell
have also less development and more tenuity; so she
prefers sweet aliments and delicate perfumes.

These differential relations in external properties and
sensorial functions are observed also in the intellectual
faculties—the brain functions. The intellect of man,
served by firmer and more developed organs, embraces
a wider horizon, and yields fruit of a higher order.
While the personal intelligence of woman has less ex-
tent and power, it is more subtile and acute. Her
vivacity; and the multiplicity of her sensations—prob-
ably also the conformation of the anterior lobes of her
brain—do not allow her to appreciate exactly the rela-
tions of things, their causes and effects. This accounts

for her inferiority in the metaphysical sciences already
288 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Women do not Originate.

alluded to. She has difficulty in fixing her attention
upon a single object. She is little given to abstraction
and generalities, but she seizes marvelously sensible
qualities and facts of detail, and in every thing which
simply requires tact, finesse, and taste she is incon-
testably the superior of man‘

We owe to woman none of the grand, immortal mas-
ter-pieces, either in literature or art,* yet women are
artistes from temperament. Their very nature would
seem to entitle them to the first rank in art. In paint-
ing and sculpture not an immortal picture or statue
claims a woman for its author. In music not a sym-
phony, not an opera, not even a sonata—we speak of
master-pieces—has been given us by women. In dra-
matic art, no tragedy, not so much as a comedy, justly
celebrated, has come from the hand of a woman.
Woman has enriched humanity with none of the great
discoveries which have changed the face of the world.
Scarcely a patent has ever been issued to a woman.
These facts are marvelous; they must result from nat-
ural causes, and are, therefore, susceptible of explana-

tion. Let us examine these causes. The insufficiency

*If certain modern examples would seem to constitute excep-
tions, it must be remembered that the question of immortality is in
abeyance.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 289

 

They Execute but do not Invent.

 

of female education, though counting for something,
can not be the only nor even the principal reason. Tn
the study of music, for example, nothing has hindered
woman from attaining the highest development of which
she is capable. The theatrical profession is as free to
actresses as to actors, yet neither the most assiduous
study of the grand musical compositions, nor perpetual
contact with the popular taste in the dramatic art,
which did much to create the immortal composers, have
endowed woman with either dramatic or musical genius.
We wish to be understood. She imitates and learns
admirably ; she is great in execution, but she does not
originate. But what is it to originate? It is to possess
genius. For example, dramatic genius is founded not
merely on the knowledge of men, but of man; that is,
it depends neither upon talent, nor finesse, nor knowl-
edge of individuals, nor the sagacious observation of
the follies of a day, but rather upon that powerful and
generative faculty which rests upon a knowledge of hu-
man nature in the aggregate. But we have already
shown that the faculties of which genius is composed
are precisely those in which women are deficient by
nature. They may, therefore, prove themselves ingen-

ious, touching, and even eloquent in the most elevated
25
290 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Women Superior in Conversation.

regions of art—rarely superior. By compensation, or,
rather, in consequence of the same law, they ought to
excel in elegiac poetry, in romance, in epistolary effort,
and in conversation. In the two last, indeed, they are,
and should be, beyond the reach of masculine emula-
tion. Here their very defects become qualities of suc-
cess. Their excitability being more keen, and their
individuality less pronounced, they receive impressions
more readily, and betray them more promptly and faith-
fully. The physiognomy of woman is consequently
more expressive and more changeable. Some one has
said, very truthfully, that ‘man has ten expressions,
woman a hundred; he one smile, she a thousand.”

Her voice, which is an index of the force and inner
qualities of the being, is sweet, and flexible, and sup-
pliant; more appropriate to the different intonations of
song. That of man, more grave and prolonged, is bet-
ter adapted to public discussions and command. It has
been already shown that his vocal organs are firmer and
more developed. The influence of the accent, the ges-
tures, the looks, no less than the sentiments and feel-
ings, and the words which these excite, and by which
they are in turn excited, make up the charm of conver-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 291

 

Woman's Curiosity. Love of God.

 

sation. KEpistolary excellence also results from some
of these attributes.

The curiosity of woman is proverbial, and justly so.
It results less from love of truth than from her neces-
sity for varied emotions.* Man searches laboriously
every thing which can enlarge the sphere of his intelli-
gence ; woman, every thing which amuses or interests
her. The secrets of private life have for her far greater
attractions than the secrets of science. As woman is
more dependent upon her surroundings than man, as
she is less distinct from the universal whole, and as the
instincts have more dominion over her, she is more sen-
sibly convinced of the idea of God. For man, God is
some thing; for woman, He is some One. Man dis-
cu&ses Him, tries to explain Him, imagines Him, alas!
sometimes creates Him; woman loves Him.

The respiratory apparatus of woman i8 more perfect
than that of man. The lungs are situated higher in the
chest, elevating, as it were, the situation of the heart,

liver, and other organs. Woman is thus not only the

*It is related of an illustrious professor, that, having to treat a
very delicate subject, he notified the women of his class that he
should rely upon their absence from the next lecture. The appointed
day arrived, and in place of twenty women he beheld more thana
hundred.
292 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

Women can “Live upon Air.”

 

conservator of the race, but the depositary of the great
seal of the superiority of the human family over the
brute creation—and of race over race. Man respires
more like the lower animals, by the base of the lungs,
woman more by the superior portions. She is in more
direct communication with the revivifying atmosphere ;
drinks, as it were, from the fountain-head of this celes-
tial and mysterious aliment. On this principle many
strange phenomena may be explained. It is often re-
marked how much less women eat than men, even those
whose work is almost as laborious. They are often said,
jokingly, to “live upon air.” Indeed, those nervous
beings whom one constantly meets, without muscular
force, consuming but little, yet sustaining, superhuman
exertions, how do they live, if not “upon air?” French-
men have something of this type. It has been said:
‘Give a Frerichman a morsel of bread and a swallow
of wine, and he will march and fight to the end of the
earth.” He “lives upon air.”*

In the intelligence which can judge and appreciate
the productions of genius, woman is without equal. Her
leisure and her enthusiastic ardor have always assured
her a great influence in these judgments. So the ap-

* See, on this subject, the writings of Mons. Serres.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 293

 

Intelligence not Genius. Qualities of ‘‘ Heart.

 

proval of women is sure to become the taste of the
public.

Intelligence, then, belongs to women as to men,
rather with different qualities than in different pro-
portions. The higher qualities of intelligence, of which
we. have spoken as peculiar to man, are only the
possession of the chosen few, and can no more be con-
sidered the rule than the necessity. Genius is not
necessary to constitute an intelligent creature.

We have already asserted that women have more
courage than men. In the fortitude to endure priva-
tion, suffering, disease, reverses of fortune, they are not
merely superior to man, they have enough for both.
They not only support their own misfortunes, they bear
those of others. They re-animate the broken merchant,
the discouraged artist. A wife, sick at heart, can smile
to make “him” smile. She represents at the same
time resignation and hope. She is the personification
of all that is comprehended in what we call “heart,”
the domestic and social qualities, such as filial, fraternal,
conjugal, and maternal affection, but above all, of Love.
The joys which spring from the association of father
and son pertain more to hope than to reality, to the fu-

ture rather than to the present. The daughter, only, can
294 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Filial Love contrasted.

 

complete them, and the charm which she gives to the
household, despite her present ungracious position, fore-
shadows to us what happiness she will yet bring to the
family in the better order of things to come. If the
son represents the hope of the family, the daughter
represents its purity. When the mother weeps it is
the daughter who consoles her; when the father suffers
it is the daughter who cares for him. The father re-
turns in the evening, bowed with fatigue, saddened with
pre-occupations, who runs to meet him even upon the
threshold? who relieves him of his hat and coat? who
dries his moistened forehead ?—his daughter! and sud-
denly fatigue and care have vanished. And so with
education. The chances are ten to one that your son
has scarcely emerged from his infancy ere the necessi-
ties of his education separate him from you. If you
live in the country, you send him many miles away;
if in the city, at the other end of the town. Two days
in a month, or once in a year, you are again a father.
Your son returns to you, but as a stranger, formed by
another, and seeking under your roof only the pleas-
ures of idleness, liberty, or comfort. His education
finished, his passions, his pleasures, or his sports rob

you of his society. The paternal mansion is a prison
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 295

 

The Cordelias of Life.

 

to him; you are his jailer, or, what is worse, his cashier.
_ Without doubt he is touched by your reproaches, he is
afflicted by the tears of. his mother—but for an hour.
He has the fever of life—he must live. Have you not
lived, also?

A daughter, on the contrary, is yours, and yours
only. Her heart will never forsake you, even when
she becomes mistress of another household, for she
leaves you only to become a mother in her turn, and,
retracing then, as teacher, the steps she has taken as
pupil, each one of her experiences in her new journey
will be gratefully associated with her memories of you.
At length old age comes upon you, and with it isola-
tion, sadness, ;infirmities. Your son does not-abandon
you, but, borne along by the necessity of activity which
lies at the foundation of the life of man, his visits ave
less frequent, his words are more brief; a man does not
know how to console. Your daugliter, on the contrary,
be she maiden, wife, or widow, establishes herself by
your pillow or behind your sick-chair, and leads the
most skeptical to believe in Divinity by force of that
goodness which is truly Divine. -Who has not encoun-
tered one of these Cordelias kneeling before a father

whose reason totters or whose body decays? Ah! then
296 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Filial Love. Illustrative Anecdote.

 

the daughter becomes the mother, and those tender and
caressing intonations consecrated to children—those
words which, it would seem, are peculiar to the lips of
mothers—are bestowed with an ineffable grace; the old
man recognizes this change of characters as, with a
smile full of melancholy and tenderness, he says to his
daughter, “I know I am childish, but I am so happy to
be your child!”

We have arising in our memory an old man, bent
with age and disease, who came from a distant city to
breathe his last, as he fondly supposed, in the arms of
his only son, comfortably established in a household of
his own. It was one of those pitiful cases of gentle-
manly respectability long maintained in governmental
employ, where the salary ceases with superannuation;
so he became at once a charge upon the son. Well do
we remember the ardent welcome he received, and the
generous instructions given us to “Do every thing in
our power for the old gentleman.” But, as the weeks
lengthened into months, and the months multiplied to
years, the son grew impatient of death’s delay, and,
but for an angel daughter who sped to his bedside and
there remained, the old man had been deserted by the

entire ‘household. She came to him young, and fresh,
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 297

 

Emancipate the Daughters!

 

and blooming, but the long watches, and, above all, the
“lifting”? day and night, robbed her of these attributes
forever. Nothing could exceed the exquisite tenderness
of this girl, the little epithets so sadly sweet, the in-
surmountable grief with which she closed the dear, dear
eyes in death, unless it be the meanness of the wretch
who then, and not till then, ostentatiously displayed his
pretended grief beside her! Both of them will recog-
nize this picture, thank God!

Emancipated, as she most assuredly will be, from the
chains which now restrain her, who can estimate the
part which the daughter shall yet fulfill in the life of
the family! These shackles are: insufficiency of edu-
cation for the rich girl; insufficiency of salary for the
poor girl; exclusion from most of the professions; infe-
riority in the paternal household. These changes are
difficult to attain, but, we repeat, they will be made,
and then only shall the daughter mingle in the mate-
rial and moral life of her parents, and shall become a,
companion and an aid where now she too often weighs
as an incumbrance.

“As for fraternal love, we do not know that there 1s
so great a difference in the sexes. We find equally

charming models in brother and sister, only there is a
298 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Conjugal Love has po Heroes.

sexuality in its method of manifestation. According as
one or the other has the advantage of years, the réle
of protector changes in character. The brother protects
in the capacity of cavalier, the sister in that of mother.

Conjugal tenderness has its heroines, but not its
heroes. What masculine example can match Eponina,
sharing her husband’s hiding-place in a cave for nine
years, when discovered, vainly imploring the emperor’s
clemency for her Husband, and dying a voluntary mar-
tyr to her affection? Or, the modern instance of Lady
Franklin? Whole volumes are filled with histories of
conjugal love on the part of wives. It is so entirely
natural that, even when extinguished by criminal pas-
sion, it is frequently revived by the husband’s danger.
Unfaithful wives will often hasten to the sick-beds ot
their husbands, spend their days and nights there, neg-
lecting those whom they love, but who are in health,
for those they no longer love, but who are ill. A man
will fight for his wife, perhaps, though he no longer
cares for her, but it is his pride rather than his heart
which defends her.

It is remarkable that, while in all languages, ancient
and modern, the love of brother or sister, husband or

wife, daughter or son is expressed by a single word—
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 299

 

“T am Yours.” “She is Mine.”

 

fraternal, conjugal, filial—that of the mother for her
children is marked by a character so personal that it has
every-where consecrated to it a specific term. Thus, in
all languages, we find maternal as opposed to pater-
nal love. We have shown that this love is innate with
woman.

Of love as between the sexes, that “compound of
esteem, benevolence, and animal desire,” as Webster
caldly defines it, or, as Shakspeare hath it,

“It is to be all made of sighs and tears;
It is to be all made of faith and service;
It is to be all made of fantasy,
All made of passion and all made of wishes;
All adoration, duty, and observance,

All humbleness, all patience and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all observance ’’—

of this love, a word shows the enormous difference be-
tween that of woman and that of man. The one says,
“JT am yours;” the other, “She is mine.” There is all
the difference between giving and receiving. If we ana-
lyze our masculine love severely, we find therein many
foreign elements. Vanity and sexual desire monopolize
three-fourths, while the remainder always finds space
for dreams of ambition or of glory. The artist, the

man of letters, and the speculator remain such in
3800 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Love may regenerate Woman, but not Man.

 

becoming lovers. It is at the side of the loved one
that they lament their defeats or boast of their tri-
umphs. To quote Byron,

“Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart—
’T is woman’s whole existence.”

Love, in fact, takes root so deeply in the heart of
woman that it fills her entire being. It even regener-
ates her. When the coquette loves there is an end of
coquetry. Even lost women have suddenly recovered
modesty and the very delicacy of affection under the
influence of love. But, if a corrupt man falls in love
with a pure young girl, he endeavors to corrupt her
also! Should chance or caprice place in the power of
a man who loves one woman another whom he does
not love, but whose beauty or position flatters his van-
ity, he will divide his favors. A woman who loves
would recoil with horror from such a proposal, even
from a hero or a sovereign.* History cites more than
one who has delivered herself to the object of her
hatred to rescue the object of her love, and statistics

= “God is my witness that if Augustus, master of the universe, were
to offer me the title of wife, and with this title should give me the

‘entire world to rule over, I should find more charm and grandeur in

being called your concubine than his empress.”’— Letter of Heloise
to Abelard. .
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 301

 

Women as Nurses. Delicacy,

 

have shown that, of twenty young girls convicted of
theft, nineteen steal for the benefit of a lover! In
woman’s love there is an imperious requirement of
ideality, an almost constant subordination of the phys-
ical to the moral. In that of man the material is
almost all in the relations of the sexes.

It is the qualities of heart which render these frail
creatures such marvelous nurses. A woman prolongs
her watches by the bedside through several successive
nights, while the most robust man, exhausted by a night
of unrest, falls asleep by the very couch of death. It
is from their depth of heart that women draw that sub-
lime tenderness and delicacy that man can never imitate.

Madame de Chantal, about to become a mother,
saw her husband, whom she devotedly loved, mortally
wounded, in the chase, by the imprudence of one of
their young relations. In despair, the young man was
about to kill himself. Madame de Chantal heard of it,
and suddenly informed him, through the clergyman of
the village, that she had chosen him as godfather to
her infant.

“A poor working girl was taken to a hospital on
account of a paralysis of the larynx, which deprived

her of speech. Her suffering, which was insupportable,
3802 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Anecdote. Intellect and Heart

 

expressed itself in sobs and torrents of tears. The
physician-in-chief subjected her to a rigorous and, for'a
long time, fruitless treatment. At length, one night
when she attempts, as usual, to move her rebellious
windpipe, a word escapes, she speaks, she is saved!
What does she do? Doubtless she calls her compan-
ions in misery, and says to them, ‘I speak !’—+tells it
to them in order to hear the sound of her own voice?
No, she is silent. Six o’clock, seven o’clock strikes;
the guardian sisters bring her nourishment; she keeps
silent, and only now and then, hiding her head beneath
the bed-clothes, she assures herself of her recovery by
a few half-uttered syllables. At last the door opens;
the physician enters and approaches her bed; then,
with a smile full of tears, ‘Monsieur, says she, ‘I
speak, and I wished to keep my first word for my pre-
server.’”* A woman only could have acted thus, for
to her belongs the empire of the heart. But which
weighs inost in the balance, the intellect or the heart?
Which does most for the perfection and the happiness
of humanity? One can not love without thinking, but
one can think without loving. What are all the sys-
tems of philosophy, all the social and political utopias,

* Histoire Morale des Femmes.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 303

 

Genius and Charity. Ineradicable Differences.

 

all the creations of the mind—works which are often
evanescent, sublime to-day, and sterile or ridiculous,
perhaps, to-morrow? What are all these in comparison
with that immutable and adorable quality which has
neither beginning nor end, and which, alone, really
brings us nearer to God—charity? Genius may disap-
pear from the face of the world, but if tenderness, if
charity were abolished, the earth would be hell itself.
St. Theresa expressed this when she exclaimed: “How
I pity the demons; they do not love!”

In this brief analysis we have endeavored to prove
that the essential psychological differences in the sexes
exactly correspond with anatomical and physiological
facts, and are, consequently, innate and ineradicable.
If the result is but little palatable to the “strong-
minded,” who are seeking to uproot the very founda-
tions of the social order, they must blame, not us, but
nature.* We are in this but the humble exponent
of the established facts of science—facts which enter
into the immutable laws of God. But we entertain no
apprehension that the really feminine women of our

*An article published some months ago, containing an incidental
allusion to man as furnishing the “‘vivifying principle of existence,”
was promptly challenged by a woman of acknowledged taste and cul-
ture, who publicly denied that man furnishes any such thing!
804 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Equality of the Sexes.

 

country will see in our effort the least disparagement
of their sex, either in fact or intention. The inference
to be drawn from the foregoing study is precisely the
same as that resulting from our historical examination,
namely, that the sexes are equal—equal, but different.
The qualities of the one are necessary to supplement,
nay, to complete those of the other. Which of these
dissimilar beings has the advantage? Neither, and for
the simple reason that the advantages are equally bal-
anced. In whatever light we regard them, we find the
law of compensation. The Creator has divided His gifts
between the sexes with infinite wisdom, for He has de-
creed that they shall be “two in one,” and that the
perfection of either shall be obtained only by their
fusion. The gifts which are in relation with material
domination have been accorded to man; those which
relate to the domination of love have been accorded
to woman, because she is the intelligent companion of
an intelligent being. Hach admires and seeks that in
which he is deficient, and which is necessary to per-
fection. Neither has a purely isolated and individual
existence; force must unite itself with weakness, weak-
ness must lean upon force. The intellect and the heart

have the largest share in the normal union of the sexes.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 805

 

The Woman inspires and preserves the Man.

 

Ix.

WHAT CAN WOMAN DO IN THE WORLD?

FTER what has been said in the foregoing chapter,

it seems altogether natural that woman has her
part in the moral and intellectual growth of man, and
that, unseen by the world, she directs and inspires the
operations of his genius. This part is constantly being
enacted in every-day life around us. If, through the
trials and temptations of public life, a statesman now
and then remains pure and faithful to the mighty trusts
reposed in him, the chances are more than even that the
wife has sustained him in his hour of doubt—has saved
him from the substitution of his personal interests for
those of the nation. Calm and dispassionate judge, she
has uttered the cry of alarm at the first sign of danger,
and no sophistry can deccive her, for she feels rather
than reasons. He may adduce thousands of arguments,

may even prove to her the justice of his determination.
3 26
306 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Woman’s Position in the Early Christian Ages.

 

She is adamant! Her heart tells her he is wrong, and
she saves him from ruin by her “obstinacy” and her—
love. The eloquent words of the orator, the grand acts
of the public man, often—very often—are the inspira-
tions of some quiet “little lady” who doubles her hus-
band’s power, and thus demonstrates that a man is only
completed by and with a woman. To live for another,
to speak through another, to be lost in the glory of
which she is the moving spring, to display the benefits
and hide the benefactor, to learn that another may know,
to think that another may speak, to search light that
another may shine—such is the history of many, many
wives.

In the early Christian ages women were linguists,
theologians, commentators, interpreters. The Gospels
assign to them most prominent places in the work of
regeneration. They participated in the sacred life of
our Lord, took part in His actions, accompanied Him
in His journeyings, and followed Him, literally, to the
death. In the lives and acts of the Apostles women
are discovered praying, baptizing, prophesying, and
spreading the Gospel. The history of the first four
centuries of the Church shows woman loving, consoling,

and counseling, while man writes, and preaches, and
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 807

 

Learned Women in the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Centuries.

 

proves the dogmas of faith which the grand councils
establish. She spoke in the discourses of man, to use
the charming comparison of Plutarch, “like the flute,
which sounds only by the mouth of another.” Certain
of the early fathers recognize in women the most pow-
erful allies and co-workers in the cause of Christianity.
St. Jerome addressed to women one-half of his theolog-
ical Jetters, and three-fourths of his treatises relate to
female education. After such proofs of courage, devo-
tion, and intelligence, who shall dare to charge them
with incapacity? It is not Christianity which disparages
the intellect of woman! Its records teem with her mar-
velous successes in literature, art, and science.

In the fourth century Paula, Marcella, Melania, and
Eustochium “surpassed all other Roman ladies in riches,
birth, and the endowments of mind.” In the fifth cen-
tury Elpis, wife of Boetius, a woman of “great léarn-
ing, wit, and beauty,” composed hymns adopted in the
Roman Liturgy. In the sixth century Radegundes,
Queen of France, who voluntarily relinquished the
court for the cloister, ‘‘ was herself a scholar, and read
both the Latin and Greek.” She intrusted to Fortu-
natus, one of the last of the Roman poets, the literary

education of her nuns, who soon excelled their master
808 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Learned Women in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries,

 

as writers, some of them approaching very nearly to
genius. In the seventh century Gertrude, in Dagobert’s
reign, “knew all the Scriptures by heart, and translated
them into Greek,” and the “learned Hilda,” a Nor-
thumberland abbess, and by birth a princess, was so
highly esteemed in the Anglo-Saxon Church that she
was called, on more than one occasion, to assist at the
councils of the bishops, who esteemed her “especially
enlightened by the Holy Ghost.” In the eighth cen-
tury “the beautiful Lioba” was declared by Boniface,
Bishop of Mentz, to possess solid learning—eruditionis
sapientia—and it is said that bishops often sought her
counsel.

“Tt is certain,” says the Count de Montalembert,
“from numerous and trustworthy testimonies, that lit-
erary studies were cultivated in the seventh and eighth
centuries, in the women’s monasteries in England, with
no less care and perseverance than in those of men,
and perhaps with still greater enthusiasm. The Anglo-
Saxon nuns did not neglect the occupations peculiar to
their sex, but manual work was far from satisfying
them. They voluntarily left the needle and the distaff,
not only to transcribe manuscripts and to illuminate

them to suit the taste of the age, but, above all, to
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 809

 

Examples from the Ninth and Tenth Centuries,

 

read and study holy books, the fathers of the Church,
and even classical works. All, or almost all, knew
Latin. Convent corresponded with convent in that lan-
guage. Some were enthusiastic for poetry and gram-
mar, and all that was then adorned with the name of
science. Others devoted themselves more readily to the
study of the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the New
Testament, taking for guides the commentaries of the
ancient doctors, and seeking out historical, allegor-
ical, or mystic interpretations for the most obscure
texts.”

In the ninth century Ebba governed, with great wis-
dom .and learning, the monastery of Coldingham, in
Ireland, comprising two immense and separate estab-
lishments of monks and nuns. This wonderful woman,
on the approach of the Danish conquerors, fearing, not
for her life, but for her chastity, assembled her nuns,
and in their presence cut off her nose and upper lip
with a razor. In this example she was immediately
followed by the others. The Danish pirates were so
enraged by the hideous spectacle thus presented that
they set fire to the building, in which perished the
entire community. In the tenth century Adelaide,

Empress of Germany, displayed great learning in the
310 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Eleventh, ‘I'welfth, and Thirteenth Centuries,

 

education of her son, Otho II, after whose death she
governed the empire with rare ability and discretion.
In the eleventh century Margaret, Queen of Scot-
land, was distinguished for her “prudence and care in
all things, her application to public and private affairs,
her watchfulness in providing for the good of her sub-
jects, and the wonderful ease and wisdom with which
she discharged every duty of the regal authority,”
showing her “most extensive genius, to the astonish-
ment of foreign nations.’ She chose for her eight
children “the ablest preceptors and governors.” The
zealous mother “watched over the masters, investigated
the progress of her children, and often examined them
herself.” This century produced also Rodhia of Cor-
dova, a Moorish-Spaniard, “freedwoman of King Abdel-
rahman.” She was the author of several volumes on
rhetoric. Also Sophia of Hispali, “celebrated for her
poetry and oratory.” She had a sister Maria, also a
poet and a “very learned lady.” In the twelfth cen-
tury Hildegardis of Germany was the author of several
books of scientific prophecy, of numerous letters to
sovereigns and pontiffs, of a poem on medicine, and a
book of Latin poems. In the thirteenth century Isa-
bella of France, daughter of Louis VIII, was “ early
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 811

 

Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.

 

celebrated for her beauty, learning, and piety.” She
was also distinguished for her proficiency in Latin.

In the fourteenth century Catherine of Sienna wrote
several books, consisting of letters, poems, and devo-
tional pieces. A pestilence laying waste the country in
1374, “Catherine devoted herself to serve the infected.”
She was commissioned by the civil authorities of Flor-
ence to act as their mediatrix in the affair with Pope
Gregory XI, and was received by the Pope and cardi-
nals with “great marks of distinction.’ So great was
her influence that she induced the Pope to re-establish
the pontifical seat at Rome, removing it from Avignon,
where it had been held for three-fourths of a century.
She administered to Pope Urban VI a round scolding,
urging him to “abate somewhat of a temper that had
made him so many enemies, and to mollify that rigid-
ness of disposition which had driven the world from
him, and still kept a very considerable part of Chris-
tendom from acknowledging him;” and, what is better
still, “the Pope listened to her and followed her direc-
tions!”

In the fifteenth century Catherine of Bologna was
a celebrated miniature painter, and “wrote learned

treatises.” She is also said to have brought musical
312 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

The Sixteenth Century.

 

instruments to perfection, and the invention of the vio-
lin has been attributed to her.

The sixteenth century was prolific of learned women.
Mary I, Queen of England, was a wonderfully learned
woman, proficient in Latin, and, withal, a strong advo-
cate of “Woman’s Rights,” which she carried to prac-
tical application by making Lady Berkley a justice of
the peace in Gloucestershire, and Lady Rous a judge
for Suffolk, “who did usually sit on the bench at
assizes and sessions among the other ‘judges, cincta
gladio, girt with the sword.” Her sister, the great
Queen Elizabeth, at seventeen “‘was perfect in the
Latin, Greek, and French, and not unacquainted with
other European languages,” and “studied philosophy,
rhetoric, history, divinity, poetry, music, and every
thing that could improve or adorn the mind.” Mary
of Hungary, was “fond of study, particularly of the
Latin authors.” Her fondness for field sports procured
her the name of Diana, and her military prowess
gained for her the title “Mother of the Camp.” Eliz-
abeth Legge commanded the Latin, French, Spanish,
and Irish tongues, and was, withal, a poet, whose
fondness for study and midnight reading cost her eye-
sight. Nor must we omit Theresa of Spain, a pious and
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 3138

 

The Seventeenth Century.

 

learned virgin, foundress of “Barefooted Carmelites,”
and Mary, Queen of Scots, the most remarkable and
most beautiful woman of her century. She wrote and
spoke Latin with fluency and elegance, and few were
found to equal her in French, Spanish, and Italian.” *

In the seventeenth century Helena Lucretia Cornaro,
doctor in theology at Padua, was also admitted to the
university at Rome.t Juliana Morella publicly main-
tained theses in philosophy, and was “profoundly skilled
in philosophy, divinity, music, jurisprudence, and phi-
lology.” Lucrezia Marinelli was “learned in Church
history, understood and practiced the art of sculpture,
was skilled in music, and, besides, left many literary
productions.” Mademoiselle de Gournay, friend and

* We can not resist transcribing here her sweetly beautiful Latin
hymn, composed the day before her execution. How familiar she

must have been with that language in which the last and highest
aspiration of her soul could find expression!
**O Domine Deus! speravi in te
O care mi Jesu! nunc libera me.
In dura catena, in misera poeng, desidero te;
Languendo, gemendo, et genu-flectendo
Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me!’

tT Mrs. Hale is mistaken in supposing her “perhaps the first lady
who was mado a doctor.” The same prodigy (if it be a prodigy!)
had been witnessed in the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and six-
teenth centuries. See Essai sur le caractére, les meurs, et l'esprit

des Femmes, by Thomas.
27
814 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

The Eighteenth Century.

 

companion of Montaigne, was an authoress of great dis-
tinction, as was Margaret, Queen of Navarre, first wife
of Henry IV, of France, of whom Brantome says: “If
ever there was a born beauty it was the Queen of
Navarre, who eclipsed the women who were thought
charming in her absence.” She understood Latin so
well as to discourse publicly in that language. ‘She
spoke and wrote,” says Mezeray, “better than any
woman of her time.” *

In the last century Laura Bassi wrote and spoke
Latin with the “utmost fluency.” “Her scientific stud-
ies, and even discoveries, left the faculty of Bologna
far behind her in the career of knowledge.” She also
won the doctor’s cap in the University of Bologna, the
president of which, “in investing her with the gown,
which was the ensign of her degree, addressed her with
a Latin oration, to which she made a most elegant
extemporaneous reply in the same language.’ Mar-
ried, subsequently, it is said “she shone as a wife and
mother with admirable domestic qualities, equaling her
scholastic ones.” She was elected by the Senate, pro-
fessor in the university. Elizabeth Carter, of whom

*She wrote a book in the form. of Epistles, the design of which
was to prove that “woman is greatly superior to man.”
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 815

 

History proves Woman’s Intellectuality.

 

Dr. Johnson said, when speaking of an eminent scholar,
that “he understood Greek better than any one he had
ever known except Elizabeth Carter,’ Hannah More,
whose writings alone earned for her upward of $150,000,
and Madame de Stael, millionaire, politician, conversa-
tionalist, but, above all, authoress, were produced_by
the last century, though they figured also in the pres-
ent. Mademoiselle Lezardiére wrote a work considered
by M. Guizot “the most instructive that is extant on
ancient Roman law.”

Thus we see that, for a period of more than six cen-
turies, women celebrated no less for their learning and
piety than for their charms of person and manners,
attended the universities and wrested honors from the
stubborn competition of men, maintained theses in pub-
lic, filled chairs of philosophy and law, harangued before
kings and pontiffs, wrote in Latin and Greek, under-
stood Hebrew, mastered all modern languages, and even
received degrees in theology. We have named only a
few prominent examples—we might swell the list to
volumes!

Of our own times the history is patent to all.
The number of women who have achieved and now

enjoy distinction as writers, linguists, poets, physicians,
3816 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Why not Enfranchisement and Eligibility?

 

scientists, and artists has never been equaled in the
same period of time, yet it seems to us that, in solid,
varied, and extensive learning, the past has still the
advantage.*

We have elsewhere shown (Chapter VII) that the
ante-Christian records prove women to have been sus-
ceptible of the highest intellectual culture. Away, then,
with the argument of incapacity, and inquire why they
should not be eligible as ministers, judges, lawyers,
politicians, and voters—as competitors for all occupa-
tions heretofore considered virile? We answer: Not,
surely, because they are not equal to men, but because
they are different from men. This, we think, has been
sufficiently demonstrated (see Chapter VIII). What
réle, then, shall be opened to woman, which shall afford
employment and scope to those peculiar qualities which
she possesses, and which shall emancipate her from the
false position of inferiority to which the injustice of

* Mrs. Sarah J. Hale gives the names of more than one hundred
and twenty-five living women of distinction, exclusive of missiona-
ries. The number is probably now more than trebled. From the
work of Mrs. Hale, itself a monument of wonderful research, learn-
ing, and perseverance, we have been able to derive great assistance
in this brief record of the past. See Woman’s Record; or, Sketches

of all Distinguished Women, from the Creation to A. D. 1854. By
Sarah Josepha Hale. Harper & Brothers.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 817

 

Ample Education demanded.

 

man still, to a considerable extent, condemns her?
Certain domestic offices, and the greater portion of
public offices, require masculine qualities. To confide
these to women would be to degrade them and. consign
them to a forced inferiority. But there are many em-
ployments which call for feminine qualities, and which
the public good demands shall be assigned to women.
Women are wanted for functions, no less than functions
for wemen. The element that they represent, not being
represented, is void. We have sufficiently defined this
element; let us proceed to its application in the three
great spheres of existence—the family, professional
and political life.

To discharge her duties perfectly, the mother should
have received an education fully equal to her capacity.
As this is unlimited in the acquisition of things already
known, and as teaching has for its object the imparting
of such knowledge, no restrictions should be laid upon
woman in the matter of literary education. No distinc-
tions of sex should enter here, but the opportunities
and advantages should be equal. This is simply justice
to one to whom we can say: “Rear your sons and your
daughters.” All the considerations which attach to her

in the capacity of wife, mother, and housekeeper exact
818 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

The Guardianship of Orphans.

 

so much, at least. Then, if the father of the family
dies, the State will be no longer able to create an
unnatural and strange protectorate over the widow and
children, for it can no longer say to her: “You are
incompetent, by reason of your education, to govern
your own affairs.” Certainly, a woman should be the
chief administratrix of her husband’s estate (her estate !)
and the guardian of his children (her children!) assisted
only by such masculine aid as the circumstances of the
case may demand. Hers should be the leading or chief
position in these matters.*

We would demand, also, that women should be
selected for the guardianship of orphans deprived by
death or other misfortune of both parents. Men often
act very strangely in these matters. Enxigencies of
business, and too often mere caprice, take them from
the post of duty, and the courts are frequently com-
pelled to appoint strangers or persons not interested to
the sacred trust. But, when present, what do men
amount to in these offices? They listen coldly to what
is told them, and sign papers when requested, placing
trust, after all, in some woman who assures them “it is

* While the present laws continue in force men should provide for
this in their wills. No prudent man of property should sleep until
he has rendered this justice to his companion.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 319

 

Men and Women contrasted as Guardians.

 

all right.” Preéccupied and absorbed by outside mat-
ters, men have neither the leisure nor the inclination
to embrace these adoptive paternities with any thing
like enthusiasm and real devotion. The best of them—
those who bring conscience into the affair—confine
themselves mainly to the mere business details. They
take excellent care of the property of the minor, defend
his interests, perhaps superintend his education in a
general way, but they know little of the interior quali-
ties of their ward. His soul, his moral being, is to
them a sealed book. They have neither the requisite
charity nor tenderness. They protect without loving.
Appoint women to these offices, and they will act very
differently. The office of guardian, filled by a sister
or other near relation—even by a female friend—will
become a maternity. When instructed in the manage-
ment of private business, their cordial vigilance, their
spirit of detail, their knowledge of children, their appre-
ciation of moral and religious requirements, their ten-
derness and devotion, will establish between women and
their wards a veritable family circle.

Much fine writing has been expended upon the ques-
tion: What can woman do for her support and that of

those dependent on her in the great bread-and-butter
820 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Necessity of Work for All.

struggle of life? And still the problem remains—vezr-
ata questio—still the injustice and the tyranny of man
oppress and hamper her, still she struggles and starves!
The poetical idea of woman is pretty enough—“ maiden,”
“angel,” “young and beautiful,” “charming creature,”
etc. The idea of wife figures her as a being cherished
by the warmth of the domestic hearth, guarded from
the hazards of external life; a creature worshiped, pro-
tected, and screened from the rude gaze of the multi-
. tude. The idea of maiden figures her as a creature
who scarcely touches the earth with the tips of her
wings. She “toils not, neither does she spin.” This
is a homage paid to the delicacy of her nature and the
frailty of her body, but it is all overturned by the sim-
ple fact: “Woman lives in the, world.” Wealth may
sometimes permit her to maintain this poetic idleness,
youth and beauty may secure her this homage for a
season, but wealth belongs only to the chosen few,
youth and beauty are but fleeting possessions. Three-
quarters of the life of woman claims as a benefit, or
exacts as a necessity, obedience to the sovereign law
of work. Work reinimates the sinking heart, purifies
and fills the void of existence. God, in creating work,

has compensated humanity for the rough trials to which
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 821

 

Develop the Natural Aptitudes.

 

it is subjected. Work assuages the deepest sorrows,
dries the most bitter tears. It always promises less
than it gives. Not only a pleasure in itself, it seasons
and enlivens all other pleasures. Friends, gayeties,
love even may forsake us, but work is ever present,
and the enjoyments it affords are the combination of
all pleasures. God has made it, like the sun, for the
whole world, but the stupid selfishness of society has
rendered it almost a degradation for woman! We
accuse her imagination, yet deliver her a prey to its
reveries. We are shocked at her impressionability, yet
roultiply and exalt its sources of development. Rich
and poor, high and low, for all, work is life and salva-
tion. The age of the passions and pleasures having
vanished, what remains to most of our women save
to struggle against wrinkles? Aliment must be sup-
plied to the soul, or it will assuredly feed upon itself.
Instruction avails little without an object—it is to give
thirst and refuse drink. We do not “live to learn, but
learn to live.” Knowledge should have an application,
or, at least, be ready for practical use.*

Every young girl should have opportunities afforded

her for developing whatever may seem to be within her

*fSee Histoire Morale des Femmes, by Ernest Legouvé.
822 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Professions should be studied by Opulent Women.

 

peculiar and individual tastes and aptitudes, whether ir
art, literature, or science. This once ascertained, she
should be encouraged to pursue it with an object—that
is, as a profession, a vocation, as though her own sup-
port and that of others dependent on her were to be
derived from it. {n our country, where fortune is so
capricious, and wherv all things are new and unstable,
the proverbial wings of riches are ever active. Scarcely
any one is so secure in the possession of wealth that he
may not regard want as a possibility. The “ ups and
downs of life” are daily exemplified, especially in our
Western cities. No young lady, however luxuriously
surrounded, can afford to neglect the acquirement of a
profession, else, when thrown upon her own resources,
as the chances are that she will be, her former prosperity
will but add to the evils of her situation. We kno a
woman who, while on her “wedding tour,” twenty years
ago, was seized with an irresistible feeling of curiosity
to know the process by which a certain glove-cleaner,
somewhere in the Isle of Wight, achieved his marvelous
success. The thought came to her: “What if I were
to find myself penniless and forsaken? What could I
do in the wide world?” She*thought but little of the

five sovereigns which the man demanded as the price
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 823

 

The Wife should keep pace with the Husband.

 

of his secret, and readily gave the required pledge not
to become his competitor. This woman now earns a
respectable support in the “glove-cleaning business!”
Not having, like men, a direct and immediate use for
their attainments, women are too apt to neglect the
advantages afforded them. Hence the superficial char-
acter of the education of most young ladies. Afford
them the requisite opportunities, and impress them with
an object, and they will be sure to find their proper
places in literature and art—often even in science—
places which men can not occupy so well.

While the principal duties of a married woman are
the care of her husband, her children, her servants,
and her house, she should not neglect those studies and
accomplishments which, if her education have been con-
ducted on the principles we have advocated, will have
become for her a necessity. She will thus not only
develop her mind to that treasure-house of instruction
for her children go essential to her high domestic voca-
tion, but she will keep pace with the intellectual growth
of her husband, whom she will constantly surprise with
fresh and varied virtues. How often does it not happen
that a man rises, by his talents and his application, far

beyond the sphere in which he started, but whose wife,”
824 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Rights of Women to Fair Competition.

 

fitting companion for his days of drudgery and humble
surroundings, remains chained to the condition of former
years—a willing slave in the back-ground, or a vulgar
object of ridicule in the drawing-room! We knew a
blacksmith who rose to prominence and fame in the
nation’s history, whose wife was still a blacksmith. We
know a physician whose skill and merit have enabled
him to surround his home with the comforts and adorn-
ments of wealth and luxury, but whose wife is ‘the
skeleton in the closet.” She is simply a vulgar old
termagant, chosen from the rough circle in which the
doctor mingled when a “wild student of medicine.”
We know a minister, born to manual labor, but self-
taught and risen to eminence now, whose wife is as
great an incongruity in the household as can be imag-
ined. We know many “ladies” whose wardrobes are
small fortunes, who drive in superb equipages, and
whose vulgarity is beyond description.*

The obvious rights of women in relation to business
and professional life are:

1. Access to all occupations and professions in the
measure of their capacity.

* We were informed by one of these that she and her newly married
*daughter occupied “contagious apartments” at a famous watering-
place!
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 825

 

Occupations peculiarly adapted to Women.

 

2. Compensation in proportion to their work, without
distinction of sex.

These requirements are those of simple justice and
common sense. How far they are complied with in the
actual state of things we do not need to discuss—the
subject is too painfully familiar. There are, however,
certain occupations which Nature, no less than custom
and law, forever interdicts to women. Why should
not custom and law, equally with Nature, establish
similar interdictions against men? That men should
usurp the places of women in purely feminine occupa-
tions is against Nature, justice, and humanity. But,
independently of these employments, there are certain
vocations which are peculiarly within the physical and
mental qualifications of women, and which they are,
consequently, better adapted to discharge than men.
These are:

1. Departments of mercantile business.

2. Certain branches of the medical profession.

3. The profession of letters.

4. The profession of teaching.

1. Mercantile pursuits. No one can justly deny the
physical and mental capacity of women to conduct cer-

tain departments of mercantile life, either as principals
326 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Women as Physicians.

 

or employées, If any doubts yet remain, they are rap-
idly vanishing under the developments of the hour.
The question is being extensively tested, and success
is already demonstrated. The absolute superiority of
woman in certain branches of trade only waits upon
proper education.

2. The medical profession. We doubt whether the
nature of woman qualifies her to achieve brilliant suc-
cess in the department of surgery. A positive and
material science, it exacts a boldness of execution, a
steadiness of hand, and a degree of insensibility which
she does not naturally possess. But medicine, a con-
jectural and variable science, seems especially within
her vocation. As a theoretical science, it rests upon
observation; as a practical science, it rests upon the
knowledge of individuals. Who can surpass a woman
in these powers? The most illustrious physicians have
asserted that diseases are so modified by individual
peculiarities that cach case constitutes a separate and
independent study. One has even said: “There are no
diseases; there are only patients.” Some have even
denied the usefulness of pathological science in view
of the individual, and therefore novel character of

each case of disease. The remedies which will relieve
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 3827

 

Why Women are naturally adapted to Medical Practice.

 

one may injure another. Woman, with her marvelous
knowledge of the individual, is peculiarly fitted to
cope with this mysterious enemy. Part of the sci
ence of the physician is the knowledge of the tem-
perament, age, and character of his patient. Woman
can bring to this examination natural gifts which man
does not possess and can never acquire. Nervous
maladies especially—those inappreciable evils which
civilization daily multiplies—will find in the female
physician the only adversary who can seize and con-
quer them. She will cure them because she knows
them. Too often, alas! the power of the physician
is limited to consolation and necessary deception.
Ask man to compete with woman in these require-
ments!

We can not admit the validity of the common argu-
ments against woman doctors. Their intelligence sur-
passes that of man in observation, and the study of
medicine is made up of this quality. Anatomical studies
certainly demand less sacrifice of health and strength
than most female employments. Their delicacy can
survive the continual association with physical infirmi-
ties, since none have more of this virtue than those

who have devoted their entire life-time to nursing the
328 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Successes of Women in Literature.

 

sick.* But the most shallow and contemptible objection
is on the score of modesty. Suppose there were any
thing in this, (which we utterly deny,) whether were it
better that an occasional woman should have her mod-
esty blunted by attending a few scores of men than
that millions of women should have their modesty
shocked by masculine inquisition into the most secret
sufferings of their sex! ‘This is the fact, however. It
is a perpetual outrage upon purity.

3. The profession of letters. The successes of women
in this sphere have been abundantly realized. The way
is open; they have but to enter and assume the monop-
oly of certain departments of literature in which men can
not successfully compete with them. And, for material
success, our country abounds in examples of women who
have attained handsome incomes—of several who have
even amassed wealth—in the career of letters. Of this
class there is a far greater proportion of women than of
men, relatively to the whole number engaged. All that
women can ask in this regard has been fully and con-
clusively demonstrated. They have only to “ go im train-
ing,” and to cireumscribe their efforts within the limits

* Who would dare to charge Florence Nightingale with want of
delicacy ?
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 329

 

Origin of Female Teachers.

 

of their peculiar talents, and so escape the ridicule
which still attaches to the “blue-stocking.”

4, The profession of teaching. This occupation belongs
to woman, by right of vocation and of conquest. We
mean the exclusive right of teaching children, and at
least equal rights in teaching adolescents. Whole vol-
umes could be filled with the successes of women in
this vocation, to which they are called by temperament
and natural gifts. If we draw our illustrations. chiefly
from religious establishments, it is because the history
of woman’s conquest of the right we claim for her
leads us thither. It was, indeed, under the inspiration
of Christian ideas that female education was revived.
Three centuries ago women were almost universally
uneducated. Ignorance was a matter of fashion’ for
rich women, and of forced necessity for poor women.
A young girl in Italy and a young widow in France
almost simultaneously conceived the idea of educating
young girls and teachers of young girls. It was noth-
ing less than a revolution. They comprehended this
fact, for they said: “The regeneration of: this corrupt
world must be accomplished by children. Children will
reform the families; families will reform the provinces;

provinces will reform the world.” New in its objects,
28
330 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

The Establishment of “ Ursulines.”

 

this institution was new also in its rules. There was
no rigorous discipline, no entire days consecrated to
prayers and idle ecstasies.

Mademoiselle de Sainte-Beuve, foundress of the “ Ur-
sulines,” of France, purchased a house at the Faubourg
St. Jacques, where she installed her “sisters” with two
hundred day scholars. She hired apartments contigu-
ous to her darling establishment, having a door which
communicated with it, a drawing-room opening upon its
garden, and a window whence she could gaze upon all
this young assemblage, which sprung, as she charmingly
expressed it, “not from her loins, but from her heart.”
When visited by the nobility—she had shone at court
in her younger days—her joy was to conduct them to
the window and show them her dear “daughters” at
work. The selection of mistresses was regulated nej-
ther by birth nor position. Other things being equal,
she selected as teachers those of the humblest origin.
Her character corresponded with her conduct. Cheer-
ful and gay, she was fond of life, and acknowledged it.
“Tt is only the miserable and despondent,” said she,
“who hold in horror that which is a gift from God.”
When she died, her “sisters,” by a touching custom,

continued for a whole year to set her usual place at
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 3831

 

Foundation of ‘Ursulines” at Clermont and Dijon.

 

table, and to serve her accustomed portion, which was
then given to the poor. Her portrait, at the request
of her “children,” represented her before her window,
her eyes fixed upon a garden filled with bee-hives, with
the legend: “Mother of Bees.”

At Clermont three poor servant girls were seized
with the desire of teaching young girls. There was a
slight obstacle to their ambition—they could neither
read nor write! They overcame this obstacle. They
learned the rudiments from two little boys of twelve
years, and eighteen months afterward their combined
savings defrayed the cost of establishing the first house
of Ursulines at Clermont.

At Dijon the foundress was Francoise de Saintonge,
daughter of a lawyer. The narrative of her trials and
sufferings would fill a volume. Her father would only
consent to her wishes after being assured by a consul-
tation of four doctors that “to teach women is not the
work of the devil.” He shortly withdrew his permis-
sion, on seeing the entire city rise against his daughter,
children pursuing her in the streets with shouts and
stones, But Francoise, with fifty francs, which consti-
tuted her entire fund, hired a house, and, with five

young girls who had joined her, repaired thither on
332 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Anecdote of Francoise de Saintonge.

 

7
a

Christmas at midnight. She said to them: “It is here
that we shall found the first house of Ursulines at
Dijon. Only, as I have expended all our funds in
paying the rent for one year, we must pass this night
in prayer, for we have no bed.” In fact, there was
neither bed, nor fire, nor food in this dwelling, and
they remained till the following night, “fasting and
shivering, but—foundresses.” Monsieur de Saintonge,
struck with compassion, sent them the remnants from
his table. So their first meal was a repast of beggars.

Twelve years later the city of Dijon resounded with
shouts of joy and the ringing of bells. The streets
were strewn with flowers. From a house of wretched
appearance defiled a procession of one hundred young
girls, clad in white, with candles in their hands. Pre-
ceding them was a girl of their own age, magnificently
attired, and bearing upon her shoulders a mantle sewn
with pearls and diamonds. At the head of this cortége
marched all the magistrates of the city, clothed in their
official robes, and preceded by bailiffs, to divide the
crowds of people. That humble dwelling was the first
asylum of Francoise de Saintonge, those hundred young
girls were her pupils, that procession was on its way to

a magnificent establishment—purchased by the Ursulines
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 333

 

Women as Professors.

 

of Dijon—and that young virgin, so splendidly arrayed,
flashing with precious stones, represented these words of
Holy Writ: “Those who teach shall shine as the stars.”

This is what women have done for woman! Thus
was female education inaugurated in France. An edu-
cation of catechisms and litanies, it is true, but the
seed was planted, the principle was created, and the
world beheld two novel spectacles—female teachers and
female pupils.

What, then, shall poor girls do? They can teach—
not as subordinates merely, but as principals, as pro-
fessors. Already, in our public schools, the majority
of the teachers are women. Only, by the ineffable
meanness of the male “boards,” they are illy requited,
and excluded from the highest positions. Competition
has doubtless something to do with the low salaries,
but reform will come only wit “mixed” boards of
education.

Paris alone contained, in 1856, more than three thou-
sand female professors of music, and perhaps as many
professors of languages. We know many instances
our own country of invalid parents and younger broth-
ers and sisters maintained in comfort by the exertions

of a daughter gifted with musical talents, and educated
834 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Reach the Intellect through the Heart.

 

to the capacity of teaching. We know a gentleman,
himself a college professor, whose comfortable home
has been purchased, in great part, by the successes of
two noble daughters as teachers of music. We know
a lady, still young, beautiful, and admired, who has
amassed a competence in this profession, and, what is
most rare for a woman, can “command her own price.”

The qualities of “heart” possessed by woman, above
all, her sentiment of maternity, peculiarly adapt her to
the vocation of teaching. She possesses not only the
faculty: of inspiring affection in her pupils, but that of
interesting them in their tasks to an extent of which
man is absolutely incapable. The true method of
teaching is but half understood. The intelligence of
children, like that of women, is readily reached through
their hearts. Whatever interests and amuses them is
eagerly acquired—without labor, almost without fatigue.
So they must be inspired with the taste for knowledge.
The means of doing this are certainly not those which
transform study into an ungracious task and a pretext
for punishment. Trust an enlightened woman to find
the way to the brains of children through their hearts!

In the education of women the dead languages have

been pretty generally ignored, and for the reason—a
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 835

 

Effects of Premature Learning.

 

stupid calumny !—that their intellects are inadequate to
the severe mental labor involved in classical studies;
yet, by a most singular inconsistency, boys of twelve
or thirteen are presumed to comprehend the poems of
Virgil and Homer! Alas! that which they comprehend
only*too well is the obscenity and beastly immorality,
while they can not comprehend the poetic genius by
which alone these indecencies are rendered endurable.
And so with classic history. Before being fairly in-
structed in modern history—especially of their own
country—and the principles which Christianity has im-
pressed upon human governments, the merest children
are familiarized with the faith of Plutarch and the laws
of Lycurgus—monuments of immorality and degrada-
tion—of which they retain chiefly the false ideas of
politics, philosophy, but, above all, of morality. They
can not discriminate the chaff from the wheat. Prema-
turely introduced to the sublime conceptions of English
poets, they acquire a veritable loathing for that which
later they would comprehend and seize with avidity.
Who can not recall his disgust for poetry when forced
to parse in the pages of Milton or Pope—a disgust
which time alone can change to love? We believe that

woman is destined to revolutionize the whole system of
336 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Accordance of Tasks and Tastes.

 

popular instruction by adapting the knowledge taught
to the age and tastes of the pupil. Let us explain
our idea. Until the average age of fourteen—in other
words, the beginning of puberty—the taste for liter-
ature, properly speaking, does not exist. Therefore
rudiments should be taught, but neither verse nor
poetic prose should be introduced. The classics should
be ignored. But, when puberty comes to enlarge the
intelligence and awaken in the soul the love of the
beautiful, it is time to begin literary studies, and to
cultivate music and drawing.* With puberty the love
of harmony and beauty develop as veritable instincts,
which, once awakened, literary studies supply a want—
they minister to a passion which they occupy to the
exclusion of morbid longings. Under its influence six
months of application accomplish more than as many
years of previous constraint and punishment. This

probably explains the circumstance, so often observed,

* We have recommended, in Chapter JI, that music should be
commenced early, and made w task rather than a pleasure. This,
however, was by way of compromise with fashion, which demands a
fearful knowledge of music on the part of young girls. The better
course is that here advocated—to postpone the study until after
puberty is established. Its influence in forcing development will be
thus avoided, and the interest of the pupil secured by the accordance
of new tastes and desires.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 837

 

Ambition of Fathers and Intuition of Mothers,

 

that a boy of fifteen may enter a school where all are
beyond him in attainments, and is promoted from class
to class until he carries the highest honors. “Grace
Greenwood” hit the mark exactly in reply to a question
concerning the age of her child: “Nine years old,
madam, and thank God he don’t know his letters.”
We have always observed that the mother, much
more readily than the father, comprehends and follows
our professional advice concerning a child whose intel-
lectual labors must be moderated or abandoned. The
latter does not so willingly surrender his project of
beholding his son a literary prodigy. He is by nature
less apt to put faith in the opinion of the family phy-
sician, especially if his own intentions and aims are
thereby invaded. Say to a woman: “Your child is
suffering from over-mental taxation; take him from
school for a while.” She accedes at once, and feels the
wisdom of the counselor, but nine times out of ten she

> and

will say to you: “You must talk with his father;’
here you have a far different task before you, and the
chances are even that you waste your breath. We
knew a very eminent physician who goaded his son to
exertions beyond his years at school, and beyond his

strength in college. He laid his hard-earned prizes at
29
338 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Let Women be Eligible as Members of “School Boards.”

his father’s feet, but a violent inflammation of the brain
left him little better than an imbecile. All this time
the dear, good, sénsible mother was interceding and
imploring rest for her boy, but, alas, in vain! Let
woman be liberally represented in our “ Boards of Edu-
cation,” and we shall have an educational system per-
fected and purged of its present evils. Her maternal
instincts, enlightened by the liberal education we have
claimed for her, will guide her with unerring precision
to the proper adaptation of time and quality of intel-
lectual pabulum. Of this we are certain: we shall
have better manners and better morals than we now
have or seem likely to obtain under our present system.

A woman has already given us a few golden words
upon this subject—sufficient to afford us a foretaste of
what her sex is ready to do for our educational system
if we will try the experiment. She is entitled to a hear-
ing, having, as she says, “‘had five thousand girls under
my charge, and spent thirty years of my life devoted
to their service.”* In an “Address to the Columbian
Association” she says:

“Tn searching for the fundamental principles of the

*Mrs. Emma Willard, distinguished as a successful teacher, author,
and lecturer. The celebrated ocean hymn, ‘Rocked in the Cradlo
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 8389

 

Philosophy of Teaching already hinted by a Woman.

 

science of teaching I find a few axioms as indisputable
as the first principles of mathematics. One of these
is this: He is the best teacher who makes the best use
of his own time and that of his pupils, for time is all
that is given by God in which to do the work of im-
provement. What is the first rule to guide us in mak-
ing the best use of time? Jt is to seek first and most
to improve in the best things. He is not necessarily the
best teacher who performs the most labor, makes his
pupils work the hardest and bustle the most. A hun-
dred cents of copper, though they make more clatter
and fill more space, have only a tenth of the value of
one eagle of gold.

‘What is the best of all possible things to be taught?’
Moral goodness. That respects God and man—God
first, and man second. To infuse into the mind of a
child, therefore, love and fear toward God, the perfect
in wisdom, goodness, justice, and power, the Creator,
Benefactor, and Savior, the Secret Witness and the
Judge—this is of all teaching the very best.*

You are God’s ministers to enforce His laws, and must

of the Deep,” was composed by her. She is also the author of an
ingenious “Treatise on the Motive Powers which produce the Circu-
lation of the Blood.”

‘Where are the bigoted School Boards!
340 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Sound Advice from a Woman.

 

do your duty. Be thus mindful in all sincerity, judge
correctly, adopt no subterfuge—pretend not to think
the child is better than he is, but deal plainly and
trily, though lovingly, with him; then his moral appre-
ciation will go with you, though it should be against
himself, and even if circumstances require you to
punish him. The voice of conscience residing in his
heart is “as the voice of God, and if you invariably
interpret that voice with correctness and truth the
child will submit, and mae you naturally and affec-
tionately.

“Next to moral goodness is health and strength—
soundness of body and of mind. This, like the for-
mer, is not what can be taught at set times and in set
phrases, but it must never be lost sight of. It must
regulate the measure and the kind of exercise required
of the child, both bodily and mental, as well as his diet,
air, and accommodations. The regular routine of school
duties consists in teaching acts for the practice of future
life, or sciences in which the useful and ornamental arts
find their first principles, and great skill is required of
the teacher in assigning to each pupil an order of stud-
tes suitable to his age, and then selecting such books and
modes of teaching as shall make a little time go far.”
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 841

 

Another Extract from the same Source.

 

The whole philosophy of teaching is inclosed in these
fw sentences from the pen of a woman! In her
“Treatise on the Circulation of the Blood” this noble
woman digresses to address young ladies in the follow-
ing strain:

“Would you, my dear young ladies, do the will of
God on earth by being useful to your fellow-beings?
Take care of health. Would you enjoy life? Take
care of health, for without it existence is, for every
purpose of enjoyment, worse than a blank. No matter
how much wealth or how many luxuries you can com-
mand, there is no enjoyment without health. To an
aching head, what is a downy pillow with. silken cur-
tains floating above? What is the cushioned landau
and the gardened landscape to her whose disordered
lungs can no longer receive the inspirations of an ordi-
nary atmosphere? And what are books, music, and
paintings to her whose nervous sufferings give disease
to her senses and agony-to her frame? Would you
smooth for your tender parents the pillow of declining
life? Take care of health. And does the ‘prophetic
pencil’ sometimes trace the form of one whose name
perhaps is now unknown, who shall hereafter devote to

you a manly and generous heart, and marriage sanction
842 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Drawing and Painting taught by Women.

the bond? Would you be a blessing to such a one?
Then now take care of your health. Or, if you hesi-
tate, let imagination go still further. Fancy yourself
feeble as with untimely age, clad in vestments of sor-
row, and leaving a childless home to walk forth with
him to the church-yard, there to weep over your buried
offspring. Study, then, to know your frame, that you
may, before it is too late, pursue such a course as will
secure to you a sound and vigorous constitution.”

In the arts of drawing and painting it is almost a
sheer waste of time and money to place pupils under
the tuition of men, however great their pretensions.
Only a woman can inspire the ordinary pupil—he who
possesses neither genius nor natural aptness— with
either a love of the beautiful or an appreciation of his
own possibilities. Yet every child should be taught
drawing, at least, and every child capable of seeing the
difference between a straight line and a curve is sus-
ceptible of receiving a knowledge of the rudiments—
probably of tolerable proficiency in the essentials of
execution. There is scarcely any knowledge taught in
the schools more sure to find scope for its practical
application in after life than this. Every one who has

not received more or less instruction in drawing can
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 843

 

A Woman pleads for her Art.

 

appreciate most feelingly the force of our remark.
The author has often had occasion to bitterly lament
this deficiency in his early education, when he has stood
before his medical classes, blackboard and chalk at hand,
and utterly powerless to illustrate an idea which words
were inadequate to impart!* We know a lovely Chris-
tian woman, herself a thorough artiste, who has again
and again demonstrated, through successive generations
of classes, not only that the most stupid and indifferent
can be brought to a comprehension and love for the
principles of drawing, but that at least one woman has
the tact, and perseverance, and patience to succeed
whére men would necessarily fail. We extract the fol-
lowing from one of her own published articles:

“There was a ring; presently, at the door of my
studio, appeared one of those ‘lady-like’ persons to
whom one is involuntarily attached at first sight. A
little girl accompanied her, so like her that I was sure
I knew exactly how the mother looked when at the
same age. The usual salutatory compliments were
exchanged, and it appeared that the little girl had

been brought to me to ascertain if she had any ‘talent

*What were the lectures of the eminent Agassiz without this

accomplishment!
344 SATAN IN SOCIETY,

 

A Woman’s Plea continued.

for drawing;’ if she had, or could even be supposed
to have, the mother wished her to commence her
lessons immediately. ‘I have always enjoyed pictures
so much, and have always wished that I could draw,
but I suppose I have no talent; I never drew a straight
line,’ was the sentence which communicated to me the
life-long desire of this sweet, lady-like, and really cul-
tivated woman—that instinctive wish to express herself
in beautiful forms, or at least to reproduce some of
those atmospheric effects or those marvels of color and
of grace which surround one in nature. The life-long
desire, I have said, for there was such a sadness in her
fine eyes, such a tender regret in her voice, that I knew
she hoped to obtain a mother’s reparation—namely,
giving to. her child what had been wanting to her own
happiness.* Therefore, when she had fully confessed
her inability ‘to draw even a straight line,’ yet held
the little girl before me with a certain look which
appealed to my heart as well as to my artistic con-
science, I replied: ‘Your little girl has two very intel-
ligent eyes, and even if she had but one it would make
no difference; behind those eyes reside, apparently, such
perceptive faculties as will enable her to see the dif-

*This idea is sublime—t. e., womanly!
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 345

 

A Woman’s Plea for her Art continued.

 

ference between round and square figures, blunt and’
sharp angles, and even those intricate forms by which
animals, plants, and the most delicate objects in nature
are distinguished from one another. I presume, also,
that your little daughter is quick to imitate any style
of dress among her schoolmates, and even expert in
making her doll’s dresses, aprons, and hats exactly
after the prevailing fashions. She has two good eyes,
ready perceptive faculties, and skill in imitation, and,
if all rules are not at fault, your child must have more
or less “talent for drawing.”’ A light seemed to break
over the mind of my guest, and certainly a very brill-
iant light broke through those eyes as she listened to
me. ‘But then,’ she said at last, ‘but then one must
have a special gift.’ ‘As much special gift, was my
answer, ‘as one must have to learn to talk. One must
have a tongue, and a mind to supply ideas for the
tongue to express, but this is hardly to possess a spe-
cial gift. To become an orator, an eloquent speaker
whose destiny it is to control the minds and hearts of
thousands of fellow-creatures, does require a special
gift, but simply to learn to talk, and by speech to
express one’s ideas, requires no special gift. Again,

to write one must have eyes, and a hand, and also
v
346 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

A Woman’s Plea for her Art continued,

 

ideas to express through this written language, but
this is not to need a special gift. This last is requisite
when one is to touch the hearts, minds, and consciences
of thousands of people beyond one’s personal circle.
Yet you never think of questioning your child’s ability
to speak and write, and not only to speak and write the
thoughts of others, but her own thoughts, impressions,
and experiences. Why, then, should you hesitate to
believe that your child can learn to express herself by
means of forms and colors, or to reproduce what she
sees around her in nature or society?’ ‘But I never
could draw a straight line.’ ‘And what necessity, pray,
is there that you should ever draw a perfectly straight
line, which can be drawn as well with the aid of a
draughtsman’s rule? If you were an architect you
might rule all your straight lines, or if you were rep-
resenting rows of buildings in perspective you could
do the same; and these are almost the only instances
in which you would be required to draw a perfectly
straight line. Indeed, in nature you never see an
absolutely straight line; the human figure displays
neither flat surfaces nor straight lines; so, my dear
madam, why should your little girl be expected to
draw them?’ I well understood the gleam of happy
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 347

 

A Woman’s Plea for her Art continued.

 

surprise and the sigh of regret which were her only
responses to this plain statement of simple facts: the
first was on the side of a pleasant discovery, and this
in favor of a darling child; the second was for herself
and her needless deprivation, ‘Then you really be-
lieve that every one can learn to draw?’ ‘Every one
who has, not two eyes, but one sound eye, and such
perceptive and imitative faculties as fall to the share
of intelligent people; and, not only this, I also believe
that children should learn to draw as universally as
they learn to write. Few, comparatively, can aspire to
writing for the literary enjoyment of widely differing
classes of society, but every child should know how to
express himself intelligently upon paper, and every child
should be able to convey to others the impressions he
receives from the objects in daily use, the peculiaritics
of city and country life, or those forms, animate and
inanimate, which mark the differences of climates, coun-
tries, and elements. Your child may never be an artist,
but she will, no doubt, learn to represent on paper the
trees which surround your dwelling, as well as the
dwelling itself, the outlines of the hills and mountains
which charm her young imagination, or those flowers

and shells which rouse her enthusiastic delight. She
348 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

A Woman’s Plea for her Art continued.

 

may even catch the beauties of the landscape through
which she travels, the faces and figures of her compan-
ions, or of those who unconsciously enliven the pleasant
views she is transmitting to her sketch-book. This,
in itself, would be no mean ambition, and would give
untold pleasure to her friends. Her sketches may
stand instead of long pages of description in the let-
ters she may yet send you from a foreign land, like
those which are seen in Mendelssohn’s charming volume
of letters to his parents on his trip through Switzerland
and Italy, or those which adorn the pages of Queen
Victoria’s “Visit to the Highlands.” It seems Her
Majesty is skilled in the use of her pencil as well as
her pen, and yet Queen Victoria never made any pre-
tensions to artistic fame. She has simply done what
English gentlewomen are expected to do, learned to
draw as she has learned to write. A pleasing anecdote
occurs to my mind, as told to me by Miss Sarah Clarke,
of Boston. In her book of European sketches is one
of two English girls who are evidently absorbed in
transferring to their books the beautiful scene before
them. Some weeks after this sketch was made Miss
Clarke and the two girls met and were mutually enter-

tained by looking over each other’s sketches, when t} vy
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 849

 

A Woman’s Plea for her Art continued.

 

found, to their surprise, and certainly great glee, that
they had been as busy that morning in securing a pic-
ture of Miss Clarke as she had been in obtaining theirs
for an artistic souvenir. To say that such results can
be expected from the exploded system of learning to
draw by copying pictures of squares, parallelograms,
circles, and semi-circles, ruined houses, mills, bridges,
blasted stumps, or foliage impervious to wind, bird, or
insect, would, of course, be simply ridiculous. One
might as well say that the child will learn to write let-
ters by copying the epistles of his teachers. In truth,
the knowledge of sketching, which I have endeavored
to show is attainable by every intelligent child, bears
the same relation to art as letter-writing does to litera-
ture. When a child not only learns to form the letters
of the writing alphabet, but to combine these letters in
such a manner as to give a sentence or a page of good
English, he has gone through as many preparatory
steps requiring a special gift as the child who sketches
out, with a free hand and ready wit, the pretty cottage,
with its drooping elm or graceful woodbine overrunning
a rustic porch, where he has spent a Summer by the
sea-shore, the waving crest of a pine, the ragged out-

line of yonder crag, or that grand mountain peak
3850 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Letter to the Author from a Woman.

 

behind which he has seen the sun set for successive
weeks. The first child is not yet a poet—perhaps will
never set two lines rhyming—and the second is not an
artist, but each has learned how to express himself
intelligibly in the language of signs or of forms, and
one is no more of a language than the other, if lan-
guage can be defined as the medium by which thoughts,
ideas, or the knowledge of exterior objects can be com-
municated by one intelligent being to another.’ ”

No school of design, no academy of instruction in
art, not even a “Conservatory of Music,’ should be
patronized unless t¢ has at least one woman high on
the list of teachers. We have receivgd many letters
of encouragement during the progress of this work,
from one of which we extract the following, written by
one saddened with many afflictions, but whose heart
still glows warmly for her sex, and whose pen is ever
active in strong and passionate appeals in behalf of all
who suffer: =

“Permit me to call your attention to the large field
open to women in the various departments of artistic
design, especially in connection with manufactures.
From my own knowledge and experience I can speak

on this subject. When my husband was principal of a
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 351

 

Letter to the Author.

 

 

large school of design for ladies in , I had full
opportunity for watching the wonderful progress of the
pupils. His method of teaching was based on geometric
science, commencing with the simple element of the
straight line, first drawn in its various positions, then
in combinations of two, three, and four, these exercises
succeeded by simple combinations of angles, first lim-
ited, then unlimited in number, till the most beautiful
and varied combinations were made from these straight
lines, before any curves were admitted; then a course
of curves, and so on to a more elaborate course and
higher lessons. Not a copy was ever allowed till the
pupils had gone through a course of perspective, and
could really draw. Every design, even the most sim-
ple, was original, the product of the pupil’s own mind.
I never saw so much success, so much enthusiasm, as
among those young ladies. There was one instance
of a young lady whose parents had been unfortunate.
The old home farm had fallen into other hands, and it
was her ambition to buy it back from the then owners.
She had never touched a pencil for the purpose of
drawing, but had heard my husband lecture, and was
interested. She had no wonderful talent, but wonderful

and unceasing perseverance, and in less than a year she
852 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Letter continued.

 

took a situation as designer in the calico print mills at
Lowell, Massachusetts. This is one instance, yet I will
just mention one more. A young lady who lived in B.,
and who had given up many pleasant studies that she
might devote herself to the care of an uncle’s house
and the charge of his motherless daughters, at last
found herself at leisure to pursue her own interests a
little, and entered my husband’s school. Of her beau-
tiful character, her true friendship, her entire devotion
to all that was good and elevating there is not time to
speak, but in about nine months she became Mr. ——’s
assistant in the school, and its after success owed much
to her ability and faithfulness. She, too, was not par-
ticularly gifted above many others, but she never failed
in any thing good. I can show a very beautiful design
she made for a communion service, the idea taken from
a little art story of mine that was published about that
time. . . . Sometimes, when looking at the past
from the present, the rush of emotions is almost more
than I can endure. These memories recall such con-
trasts. Our home was so beautiful and happy, and
about once a month we had receptions at our house for
my husband’s pupils—between eighty and a hundred—

with their friends, a talk of art, literature, and much
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 853

 

Teachers of Oratory and Elocution. Dentists.

 

else that was interesting to us all. My own time was
given to make home happy for all, or in my leisure to
write a little.” . . .

No less an authority than the Edinburgh Review
positively recommends women as teachers of oratory,
and even asserts their superiority in this capacity. We
have seen them successful as teachers of elocution, for
which, indeed, their natural qualities of voice should
peculiarly recommend them.

Jt is not our purpose to specify in detail the numer-
ous avocations in which woman can excel. To do so
were simply to enumerate nearly every sort of employ-
ment in which patience and skill are wont to triumph
over mere physical force. It is said that some of the
best dentists in Europe are women, and we confess we
can discover no reason why they should not be at least
equally successful with men in this art, while we can
imagine them superior in some natural qualifications.
We should hear less of the “brutality of dentists,” the
sympathetic nature of woman being considered. The
best dentists now seek the co-operation of competent
physicians and surgeons whenever operations demand-
ing the use of chloroform or involving extraordinary

judgment are required, while the use of ingenious
30
354 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Lecturers, Editors, Librarians, Sculptors.

 

mechanical appliances obviates the necessity of so
much physical strength as was formerly held to be
necessary. Even in extracting teeth it is asserted that
“tact” rather than force is required.

As public lecturers women have been every-where
successful. At first the novelty, and afterward real
interest, have always secured them good audiences. It
is now a recognized fact that the lyceum or association
makes a great blunder which fails to secure one or
more of the popular woman lecturers for its “course.”
As editors and librarians women have clearly estab-
lished their claims to equality, if not to absolute supe-
riority. As sculptors there are already several who

have achieved both fame and fortune.*

* Edmonia Lewis, a colored sculptress not yet twenty-five years
old, whose studio at Rome is sought by the cultivated and wealthy,
and whos€ works command almost fabulous prices, furnishes a re-
markable instance of perseverance, not only against disadvantages
of sex, but the still greater obstacles of race and color. Her father,
a negro, and her mother, an Indian, both dying early, she was
“raised”? among the Chippewa Indians, but, through the generosity
of her brother, was enabled to obtain a few years at school. Thence
she made her way to Boston, where she landed penniless and friend-
less. Wandering abstractedly through School-street, she gazed in
wonder and admiration upon the statue of Franklin, and, to use her
own words, “‘was seized with the desire of making something like
that man standing there.” She asked a kindly looking lady “ what
ub was made of,” and, being informed, sought the studio of Mr.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 855

 

Actresses. Ministers.

 

As actresses women have been pre-eminently suc-
cessful, All that we have shown in Chapter VIII
concerning their natural aptitude for the theatrical pro-
fession has been abundantly sustained by the facts.
Against every obstacle that social proscription could
contrive, many, very many, have forced their way to
recognition even in the most exclusive circles of this
country and of Europe.

As ministers (clergymen?) women have proved them-
selves at least equal to the average preacher, and if
qualifications as writers and orators are all that are
requisite to constitute good ministers, (and with many
these are the sole requirements, piety being under-
stood,) then have women an equal chance for distinc-
tion. If, as one of them recently assured us, they
Brackett, from whom she obtained some clay, some modéling. tools,
and ‘fa baby’s foot.’ In about three weeks she returned with a tol-
erable reproduction of the foot, which the artist cofnmended, and
lent her “a woman’s hand.” Meanwhile she had made‘for herself a
set of implements the exact counterpart of those she had borrowed,
and, being equally successful in modeling the hand, she received
from the artist a letter to a lady who gave her eight dollars.” With
this modest “capital’’ she established a studio, on the door of which
a simple tin sign announced: “ Edmonia Lewis, Artist.” From that
time forward her career has been one uninterrupted triumph. Her

latest work, “Hagar,” is valued at six thousand dollars, and has

earned a handsome revenue by its exhibition.
356 SATAN IN SOCIETY,

 

Public Officers.

 

“feel the call,’ we do not see why they should not
be allowed to answer it-provided they can find “ soci-
eties” willing to employ them. We candidly admit,
however, that in our estimation the sacerdotal office is
essentially virile.

Under what may be termed public offices there is
a long series which women are naturally better qual-
ified to discharge than men—functions which men do
not perform at all, or which they perform but poorly.
Many of these offices already exist, but still others
should be created for the purpose of rendering avail-
able those peculiar qualities which would render women
invaluable in State affairs. Whatever may be thought
of convents, it is true, as M. Legouvé asserts, that
there alone have women hitherto been able to demon-
strate their true value, for there alone have they been
free to act independently of masculine interference and
repression. “A woman, in the cloister, lives and acts.
As superior or chief of an order she governs. Estates
to administer, souls to direct, laws to establish, jour-
neys to undertake, lawsuits to sustain, every thing, in
fact, which constitutes the mechanism of social, if not

of political functions, becomes for them a necessity,
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 857

 

Women in Convents.

 

and from this necessity they have created a long suc-
cession of virtues.”

This concentration of administrative powers in the
hands of women has in no instance proved detrimental
to the prosperity of these institutions. On the con-
trary, they become rich, powerful, and famous. In the
history of the Abbey of Fontevrault we learn that
“during six hundred years, and under a succession
of thirty-two abbesses, all of their prerogatives were
attacked by masculine pride or violence, and all were
maintained by the energy of women.” They pleaded
the cause of their order before civil and ecclesiastical
tribunals, and were always victorious. In the history
of Port Royal we behold forty-seven nuns thrown into
captivity, deprived of communion, and, rather than sign
an act against their conscience, contending against a
hostile superioress, and even against an archbishop, but
always dignified and calm, wresting from the Arch-
bishop of Paris the acknowledgment: “You are as
pure as angels and learned as theologians, but proud
as Lucifer!’ In order to subdue them he appeared
before the convent with eighty men armed with mus-
kets. They danced for joy, expecting martyrdom!

They were separated, some being imprisoned, and
358 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Public Offices for which Women are better adapted than Men.

 

others allowed to remain, but burdened with humil
iations. Nothing could break their courage. They
pleaded their cause by their writings and their con-
duct, and, “after eight years of contention, during
which not a man lent them support, they came off
victorious over both the spiritual and temporal powers.”

Such proofs of firmness, of administrative ability, of
devotion to duty, of aptness for business, of active
charity, and of practical good sense demonstrate very
forcibly the part that should be assigned to women in
the affairs of State. Our prisons are illy inspected, our
hospitals poorly governed, our public charities badly
dispensed. In the hands of intelligent women these
abuses would be speedily reformed. They could not
manage worse, and would probably succeed far better,
if substituted for men as Indian Commissioners and
Agents, while in the distribution of the public lands
there would doubtless be far more honesty, and proba-
bly greater ability, than are now displayed! In’short,
we would demand for women eligibility to all public
offices which are calculated to call into action their
maternity instincts, involving a leading voice in all
schemes of popular education and reform.

An eloquent letter on this subject was addressed to
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 859

 

Letter to the French Convention.

the Convention, in the second year of the French Re-
public, by the Marchioness de Fontenay, a young and
beautiful woman, who afterward became very famous as
Madame Tallien. “Citizen representatives,” she wrote,
“in a republic all should be republican, and no person
endowed with reason may, without disgrace, deprive
himself or be deprived of the honorable employment of
; serving the country. All men pay their debt to France.
They either defend the natal soil against the foreigner,
or watch as assiduous sentinels around the dwellings of
the citizens, and mount guard upon our walls to avert
the dangers which may menace their brethren. Citizen
representatives, women demand an equal charge! They
desire to guard the unfortunate—to avert from them
want, misery, and the anticipation of death, more fright-
ful than death itself. Every young girl, before taking
a husband, should spend several hours of each day,
during at least one year, in the bureaus of benevo-
lence, in the asylums of poverty, in order to learn
how to change the fleeting and sterile emotions of her
natural compassion into an active sentiment, in order
to succor the unfortunate under the laws of a system
organized by you. Behold their duties and their rights!

s
They are eager to see them converted into laws, and to
360 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Confer Rights but Impose Duties.

 

-

enter, by your voice, into the service of the institutions
of the country. She who addresses this letter to you,
citizen representatives, is young, aged but twenty years.
She is a mother, but no longer a wife, and her sole
ambition is to be called the first to these honorable
functions.” *

To imbue woman with the love of country, with sub-
lime patriotism, it is necessary to confer upon her
opportunities of serving the country—with such oppor-
tunities as shall enable her to work to the best advan-
tage by utilizing those natural gifts in which she does
not suffer in comparison with man. It is not enough
to confer rights—it is absolutely necessary to impose
duties. One loves his country in proportion to his suc-
cess in serving it. Thus the fires of patriotism burn

most brightly in those who have sacrificed most upon

*The woman who uttered these noble sentiments presented, in her
own person, @ curious confirmation of all we have alleged against
women in political life. Fleeing from France with her husband dur-
ing the Reign of Terror, M. Fontenay was arrested and thrown into
prison. While endeavoring, with all a wife’s devotion, to secure his
release, she yielded to the criminal passion she had inspired in Tal-
lien, whom she induced to secure her husband’s liberation and to
favor his escape to Spain. She then deliberately obtained a divorce
to enable her to marry Tallien! This drama was subsequently re-
enacted, and she-married a third husband, the Prince of Chamay,
in 1805!
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 361

 

How to make Patriots.

 

her sacred altar, and those men who, during our recent
war, bore the brunt of battle and the hardships of the
camp, and those women who braved the dangers of the
hospital ane the perils of exposure, are patriots by the
best of titles—they have “served!” Says M. Legouvé,
who ably advocates the suggestions of Madame Fonte-
nay: “The inauguration of these employments should
be accompanied by solemn and touching ceremonies,
Grades and recompenses should be established in this
army as in the other. Women should take the oath of
fidelity, not to the republic and the laws, but to God
and the poor, that, after some time spent in this noble
work, they may appropriate to themselves that beauti-
ful word which signifies at the same time a duty and a
reward, that they, as well as the soldier, may say: ‘I
have served.’ ”

In political life we have already given, as we think,
sufficiently cogent arguments, based on considerations
of nature and the lessons of history, why women should
be shielded from competition with men. It seems to us
that the best argument for ““Woman’s Rights” we have
ever encountered is embodied in the following, delivered
by the Marquis de Condorcet, before the French Assem-

bly, in 1789: “In the name of what principle, in the
31
862 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Argument of Condorcet.

 

name of what right, are women deprived of political
functions in a republican state? I can not discover!
The words ‘national representation’ signify represen-
tation of the nation. Are not women a part of the
nation? The object of this assembly is to constitute
and maintain the rights of the French people. Are not
women a part of the French people? The right of
electing and of being elected is, in the case of men,
founded solely upon their title of intelligent and free
creatures. Are not women intelligent and free creat-
ures? The sole limits imposed upon this right are
condemnation to corporal or ignominious punishment
and minority. Are all women under criminal convic-
tion, and do we not read in our laws this declaration:
‘Every person of either sex who has attained the age
of twenty-one years is major?’ Do you allege the
corporeal weakness of women? ‘Then it should be nec-
essary to bring the representatives before a medical
jury, and reject all those who have the gout every
winter. Is their want of education, their lack of polit-
ical genius, an objection? It seems to me that there
are many representatives who do without either. The
more we interrogate good sense and republican princi-

ples, the less can we find a serious reason for depriving
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 863

 

Condorcet’s Argument continued.

 

women of participation in political affairs. The capital
objection itself, which is found in every mouth—the
argument based on the declaration that to open the
political career to women is to tear them from the fam-
ily—this argument has only the appearance of solidity.
In the first place, it does not apply to the numerous
class of women who are not married, or who are so no
longer. In the second place, if it were decisive, it
would be necessary, for the same reason, to forbid
them all manual and commercial employments, which
now force them in thousands from family duties, while
political offices would not occupy a hundred in all
France. Finally, a celebrated woman settles the ques-
tion by a sublime utterance: ‘Woman has the right to
ascend the +ribune, since she has the right to ascend
the scaffold!’ ”

These arguments, we repeat, seem to us the most
cogent that can be adduced in support of the political
enfranchisement and eligibility of women. All that is
said by the modern agitators is but a rehash of these
sentiments. We readily concede their great force when
urged in the name of abstract right and under a repub-
lican form of government. To deny to women all in-

tervention in public affairs is evidently to violate the
364 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Experience vs. Abstract Right.

very principles of republicanism and of sound policy.
All that we have said elsewhere shows that our objec-
tion to “Woman’s Rights” is based neither on physical
nor mental disability, nor on any other of the grounds
imagined in the above quotation. Even the so-called
“capital objection”—that which may be called the
family argument—applies with less force to the few
successful candidates than to the thousands of disap-
pointed aspirants, and with less force to even these
than to the millions of partisans created. (See page
88.) Viewed as an abstract right, (if there be such a
thing!) and merely on the basis of Condorcet’s argu-
ment, there can be no question. Our capital objection
is based on the nature of woman as analyzed in Chap-
ter VIII, and we assert that the facts of history sus-
tain every presumption to which our analysis tends:
It thus becomes less a question of abstract right than
one of fact and experience. Let us examine the record
of history in this connection. First, there is what ds
called the sensus communis, the universal sense. This
has been ever opposed to woman’s franchise and eligi-
bility. Whatever violates the universal sense is, ipso
facto, wrong, or at least presumably wrong. It can

not be claimed that in this instance the common senti-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 365

 

Quotation from Montalembert.

 

ment of mankind has been entirely influenced by the
antechristian spirit of masculine oppression, for we find
it still operative in those early Christian ages when the
reaction in favor of woman was so great that she wanted
nothing which an almost reverential esteem and respect
could procure for her. Nor do we anywhere find Chris-
tians as a body, nor even woman herself, claiming polit-
ical “equality” for women. Nevertheless, we know
that in certain quarters, and with more or less restric-
tions, the right to vote and hold office has inured to
women.

We quote from the Count de Montalembert: “ Who
does not recall those Cimbri whom Marius had so much
trouble in conquering, and whose women rivaled the
men in bravery and heroism? These women, who had
followed their husbands to the war, gave to the Romans
a lesson in modesty and greatness of soul of which the
future tools of the tyrants and the Caesars were not
worthy. They would surrender only on the promise of
the Consul that their honor should be protected, and
that they should be given as slaves to the vestals, thus
putting themselves under the protection of those whom
they believed virgins and priestesses. The great begin-

ner of democratic dictatorship refused, upon which they
3866 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Quotation from Montalembert continued.

 

killed themselves and their children, generously pre-
ferring death to shame. The Anglo-Saxons came from
the same districts, bathed by the waters of the North-
ern Sea, which had been inhabited by the Cimbri, and
showed themselves worthy of descent from them, as
much by the irresistible onslaught of their warriors as
by the indisputable power of their women. No trace
of the old Roman spirit which put a wife in manu, in
the hand of her husband—that is to say, under his
feet—is to be found among them. Woman is a person,
and not a thing. She lives, she speaks, she acts for
herself, guaranteed against the least outrage by severe
penalties, and protected by universal respect. She in-
herits, she disposes of her possessions, she fights, she
governs, like the most proud and powerful of men.” *

And again from the same authority: “Thence, too,
arose the great position held by the queens in all the
States of the Anglo-Saxon Confederation. Possessing

a court, legal jurisdiction, and territorial revenue on

*In this respect there was no difference between the victors and
the vanquished. Woman had always occupied an important place
among the Britons, and often reigned and fought at their head. Wit-
ness Boadicea, immortalized by Tacitus. ree women, married and
possessing jive acres of land, voted in the public assemblies of the
clans or tribes of Britain.—Ancient Laws of Cambria.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 367

 

Quotation concluded.

 

her own account, surrounded with the same homage,
sometimes invested with the same rights and authority
as the sovereign, his wife took her place by his side in
the political and religious assemblies, and her signature
appeared in acts of foundation, in the decrees of the
councils, and in the charters, sometimes followed by
those of the king’s sisters, or other princesses of the
royal house. Sometimes these royal ladies, associated
as they were among the Teutons (of whom Tacitus
speaks) in all their husbands’ cares, labors, and dangers,
gave all their efforts, like Ermenilda of Marcia, to the
conversion of a still heathen kingdom; sometimes, like
Sexburga in Wessex, they exercised the regency with
full royal authority and almost manly vigor.* There
is no instance of a woman reigning alone by hereditary
right or by election. But the mysterious act which
ended the days of Osthryda, Queen of the Marcians,
reminds us that we are in the country where Mary
Stuart, the first who ever lost a crowned head on a
scaffold, was to prove that women were there destined

to all the. greatness and all the calamities of supreme
power.”

*Sexburga was made Queen-Regent by her husband, King of Mes-
sex, Kinewalk, at his death in A. D. 673.
368 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Examples of Female Ruiers.

 

We need not rehearse the history of the numerous
empresses, queens, and regents, from Semiramis, who
gained her crown by an artifice and crime essentially
feminine,* or (if her existence as a historical personage
be denied) from Athaliah, who, B. C. 884, “arose and
slew all the seed-royal of the house of Judah” in order
to ascend the throne, to Maria Christina, Queen-Dow-
ager and Ex-Regent of Spain. There have been great,
and noble, and good women among them, but, with
scarcely an exception, they have displayed, at some
period of their career, more or less of those peculiarly
feminine faults which place them at a disadvantage in
the comparison. They have been condemned to a
forced inferiority in striving to be men. Even the
reigning sovereign of England proves no exception to
the rule, for she has allowed the uncontrollable emo-
tions of a private though noble grief to so overshadow
her efficiency that “‘abdication” and a “regency” have

been already pretty loudly hinted.

*It is said that, having induced her husband to surrender the
crown to her for five days, she used her absolute authority to pro-
cure his assassination, and thus secure her permanent poasession
of the throne! If, as some historians contend, Semiramis is a fab-
ulous character, this proves at least that the nature of woman was
shrewdly understood by the writers of antiquity, and the example is
equally good for our purpose.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 369

 

Examples of Women as Statesmen and Politicians.

 

For the record of history in relation to women in
political life we need go no further than the French
Revolution, where women invaded the political domain
in crowds, and for three years fully tested the experi-
ment which it is now sought to repeat. The experience
has not proved favorable, even with all possible allow-
ance for national peculiarities. They have exhibited—
perhaps in an exaggerated degree—all those inherent
causes of failure which we should expect to behold in
the event of women seeking to exercise functions which
are by nature virile.

As stateswoman perhaps the best example is Madame
Roland, than whom history presents no more noble
character—enthusiastic, ardent, pure, profound, heroic,
and devoted. As a wife she was dutiful and cheerful
where others would have proved rebellious and irrita-
ble; as a friend she realized the highest excellence
conceivable; as a mother there is no purer example;
as a patriot she was unsurpassed, but, says M. Legouvé,
“What a statesman! She had political sentiments in
place of ideas, and became the death of her party from
the moment she became its soul.”

As a politician we select, among many striking exam-

ples, that of Marie Olympe de Gouges, who was a most
870 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

A Political Stump-Orator.

prolific writer upon political and social economy—the
authoress of more than twenty volumes. Says Legouvé:
“She lacked but one thing—principles. She called her-
self national, yet proposed that each party should choose
the government it preferred. She called herself repub-
lican, yet demanded a costly civil list for the king. She
declared Louis XVI a traitor, and one year afterward
wrote to the Convention claiming the right of defending
him. Always a woman, despite her virile aspirations,
she drifted at the mercy of her heart; a victim to con-
sole, a misfortune to commiserate, overturned all her
plans of political organization.”

Rose Lacombe was perhaps the most beautiful, as
she was certainly the most eloquent public speaker,
of all the women who figured in the Reign of Terror.
She founded and became president of the most cele-
brated of all the numerous female clubs of Paris in
1790—La Société des Republicaines Revolutionnaires.
She was the recipient of a civic crown, decreed to her
by the city of Marseilles. She was especially eloquent
in her public harangues against the nobility. Falling
violently in love with a young royalist prisoner, she
espoused his cause, “called Robespierre monsiewr,” and

wished “nothing more than to overthrow the Commune.”
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 3871

 

Female Political Clubs in France.

 

She was compelled to hide in order to escape the ven-
geance of her former friends, and “three months after-
ward a membér of the Convention observed under the
peristyle of a theater an obsequious young shopwoman,
graceful, lively, and full of skill in displaying her laces
and her needles. It was Rose Lacombe!” From this
example we may infer our female “stump-orator” of
the future.

We quote again from M. Ernest Legouvé, than whom
woman can find no more strenuous advocate of her just
advancement :

“What were they too often [these female political
clubs]? An instrument in the hands of every leader,
they served men as both weapon and plaything. Under
the Reign of Terror, when they wished, at the Com-
mune, to vote some violent measure, such as the erec-
tion of a statue of Marat, or the right of domiciliary
visits, they caused it to be first proposed by La Socicté
Fraternelle. Was it intended to rule the discussion at
the Assembly, to stifle the voice of Vergniaud, they
crowded the benches with the Republicaines Revolu-
tionnaires. On the days of solemn execution the first
places around the scaffold were reserved for the furies

of the guillotine, who clung to the timbers of the
3872 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Women of the French Revolution.

 

trestles in order to be nearer to the death-agony,
drowning the cries of the victims under their shouts
of laughter, mingled with the noise of their dances.
A poet, comparing them to the fountain-statues from
the breasts of which flowed water, in the Place de la
Bastille, wrote these terrible verses:

‘De ces effrayantes femelles

Les intarissables mamelles,

Comme de publiques gamelles,
Offrent & boire & tout passant.

Et la liqueur qui toujours coule,
Et dont abominable foule,
Avec avidité se sotile
Ce n’est pas de eau, c’est du sang.’

In exchange for these hideous services the terrorists
accorded more than one honorable privilege to the rev-
olutionary women: the right of appearing in public
preceded by a banner bearing a device; fraternal hon-
ors at the sessions of the Commune, the Jacobins, and
the Convention; permission to knit during the sessions.
But, when the triumph of the party was secured by the
arrest of the Girondins, an energetic reaction broke
with contempt these thenceforth useless instruments.
Bitter sarcasm succeeded to hypocritical homage.

“The ninth brumaire, 1793, Amar, in the name of

the Committee of General Safety, ascended the tribune
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 873

 

Experiment of ‘‘Woman’s Rights” in France.

 

of the Convention and said: ‘Shall women exercise polit-
ical rights and take an active part in the government?
Shall they deliberate as popular societies? The Com-
mittee has decided in the negative. To exercise political
rights, to unite in political societies, is to take part in
the resolutions of the state, it is to enlighten, to guide.
Women are little capable of high conceptions, of serious
meditations, and their natural exaltation will always sac-
rifice the interests of the state to all the disorders that
the heat of passions may produce!’ The Convention
immediately rendered the following decree: ‘All clubs
and popular societies of women, under whatever desig-
nation, are forbidden.’ Certainly, they could not have
more speedily forgotten their principles and their allies!
“Some days afterward a deputation of the Republi-
caines Revolutionnaires appeared in the Assembly to
protest against this decree, but the first word was
hardly pronounced when the whole chamber arose with
cries, ‘The order of the-day! the order of the day!
and the petitioners retired previpitately, amid the hoots
and jeers of the spectators and representatives.
“Twelve days later they presented themselves at
the session of the Commune of Paris, the red bonnet

upon their heads, but their presence alone excited such
874 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

“Woman’s Rights” in France continued.

violent murmurs that Chaumette, arising, cried out: ‘1
demand honorable mention in the procés-verbal of the
murmurs which have just arisen. It is a homage to
manners! The place where the magistrates of the peo-
ple deliberate should be interdicted to every one who
outrages nature!’ One of the members having ven-
tured to say that the law allowed the women to remain,
‘The law,’ replied Chaumette, ‘ordains that manners
shall be respected, but I behold them despised here.
Since when has it been allowed to abjure one’s sex?
Since when has it been decent to behold women aban-
doning the pious charge of their households to come
upon the public arena, to join the harangues of the trib-
unes at the bar of the Assembly? Impudent women,
who desire to become men, to make motions, and to
fight, remember that, if there has been a Joan of Arc,
it is because there has been a Charles VII; the destiny
of France could repose in the hands of a woman only
under a king who had not the head of a man!’ At
these words the Lepudblicaines Revolutionnaires, as fee-
ble and timorous as their accusers were inconsistent,
removed their red bonnets and concealed them beneath
their garments, like guilty scholars who hope, by force

of submission, to disarm the rage of their pedagogue.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 3875

 

Woman’s Incapacity for Statesmanship.

 

“Thus ended, almost without opposition, that polit-
ical réle which had been produced without a single act
which was truly grand. Women had, nevertheless, given
admirable examples in France during four years, but it
was by altogether transient interventions, as at the fes-
tival of the federation, or at the taking of the Bastile;
it was, above all, by virtue of consoling, of conciliating,
as victims, wives, and mothers. Their energetic and
admirable an of the fifth and sixth of October—what
was it, if not a maternal riot? They marched in order
to have bread for their children. ‘No more misery,’
cried they on returning, ‘nous ramenons le boulanger,
la boulangére et le mitron.’ Aside from these days of
sublime enthusiasm, aside from these acts of the heart
which are the poetry of politics, but not politics itself,
the intervention of women was either fatal, or useless,
or ridiculous.”

We have thus demonstrated that the facts of science
and the facts of history alike prove woman’s incapacity
for statesmanship, and that every attempt at her polit-
ical emancipation can only retard her legitimate devel-
opment by converting into positive faults those native
characteristics which, properly employed, constitute the

elements of her greatest strength.
376 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Prevalence of the Evil.

 

PROSTITUTION.

HERE is but one thing more astonishing than the

spectacle of what is called a woman, selling her
body to all the horrors of lust—it is that of what is
called a man, becoming the purchaser! The mystery
exists, however. It numbers untold thousands of the
former, and untold millions of the latter. Its increase
is so alarmingly rapid, that the attention of philan-
thropists and legislators has been forcibly drawn to
the subject, and public meetings are being held all over
the country and the wildest schemes promulgated, each
claiming to be the grand specific for this horrible
plague-spot on our body-social. Of all the plans
presented, that which seems to mect with the best
chances for adoption, and which has actually been

carried to practical operation in some cities, is the
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 3877

 

Only Christian Charity can deal with it.

 

one which, in our judgment, is most surely calculated
to foster and perpetuate the evil. We allude to the
plan of civil license, in which, we believe, St. Louis
has taken the initiative for this country. That an old
European custom which has long ago demonstrated
its entire inadequacy to the end proposed should be
revived in this nation of “rational progress” is, we
confess, an enigma. It shows, at least, how wild and
ridiculous men become when they attempt to substitute
their own feeble intelligence for the revelations of
Divine wisdom. Obviously the secret of success re-
sides in whatever method can attack the root of the
evil by reforming those now engaged in this revolt-
ing traffic, and preventing accessions to their ranks.
Only Christian charity can accomplish these objects,
for it remembers One who spoke gently to an un-
fortunate woman of the class and gave her His par-
don and consolation; one drop of Whose precious
Blood is sufficient to wash and purify the entire
universe.

We reserve for a subsequent work our analysis of
the history, causes, and remedies of the “social evil,”
but we desire in this connection to enter our most

solemn protest against, and to warn our countrymen
32
378 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

No Official Recognition.

of the fatal consequences involved in any official
recognition of a crime which precipitates humanity

to the utmost limits of degradation.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 879

 

Application of Previous Studies.

 

XI.

HAPPINESS IN WEDLOCK.

‘T is far from our intention to present an exhaustive
treatise upon the subject of this concluding chapter.
We sincerely believe that those who have thus far
perused our pages, have already formed a tolerably
clear idea of the relations of the sexes and the princi-
ples which comprise the elements of a happy marriage.
We have only now to apply the lessons resulting from
our previous studies.

In creating the human race, God has made them
intelligent and free, because he has designed them for
immortal existence. He has created them male and
female, because they are destined to perpetuate them-
selves upon the earth by means of generation, and
because the complicity of the obligations imposed upon
them necessitates participation. To facilitate the fu-

sion of these two. hearts, God has ordained that the
880 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Object of Love.

 

supreme necessity of thinking creatures shall be to
love and to be loved, and that they shall be drawn to-
ward each other by common interests and affections.
He has endowed them with sufficient differences to pre-
vent their collision upon the narrow line of selfishness
and egotism, and with sufficient similitude to unite with-
out conflict, and to travel side by side, as in parallel
lines, dividing and sharing the cares, and joys, and
sorrows of their heavenward journey. He has given
them “Equality in difference.” In no respect are these
differences more marked than in love. It differs not
only in degree, but in kind. Love is the very nature
of woman. She may be said to possess it in a general
sense, independently of individual application. Scarcely
out of the cradle, she responds readily to all caresses
and manifestations of affection. The boy, on the con-
trary, seems endowed with a sort of brutality. His
affections and tendencies develop only with his growth
and in proportion as the necessities of his life exact
them.

All the passions of woman relate in the last analy-
sis to her maternal réle. So, as we have elsewhere
asserted, she manifests the mother almost in her infancy.

Her instincts unccasingly attract her in this direction.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 881

 

Domestic Happiness in its Largest Sense.

 

To fulfill so important a function it was absolutely nec-
essary that she should be provided with instinctive tend-
encies, and that her will should be dominated by the
mysterious power of a heart full of obedience and faith
in her mission. Intelligence and reason alone are not
sufficient for the development of humanity; the loving
elerent of woman only can impart those treasures of
faith, hope, and charity which are so essential to its
nourishment.

It is claimed by theologians that the immortality of
the soul is proved by the fact that,of the whole animal
creation, man is the only being who does not attain
the limits of his aspirations while on earth. It is cer-
tain, however, that in nothing is he able to approach
so nearly the realization of his fondest hopes as in
love. When consecrated by a happy marriage he finds
in this heavenly attribute the nearest approach to Par-
adise—the invisible bond which attaches him most
closely to Divinity. We of course refer, in this con-
nection, to that love which comprises domestic happi-
ness in its largest sense. Mere sexual desire—the
gratification of his carnal appetites—soon takes its
proper rank as one of the least prominent elements of

married felicity. We should scarcely be believed were
882 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Shall ‘‘ Courtship” continue in Marriage?

 

€
we to state how infrequent in the very happiest unions,

are the repetitions of the generative act. The greatest
error one can commit is to suppose that love consists
only of those fugitive moments which, according to the
magnificent comparison of Bossuet, “resemble in one’s
life-time nails driven in the wall; they appear numerous
to the eye, but when collected together they can be held
in the hand.” Even in the most intimate relations of
marriage, love is expended chiefly in charming conversa-
tions, in acts and words which breathe only goodness,
grace, and delicacy. Women demand not that the ex-
travagances of early wooing should be continued in
the husband, but they will readily exchange all the
transports of passion for those caresses of the soul which
they prize so dearly, and which cost men nothing
save a little attention. The flattering words of the
lover are acceptably supplanted by the flattering acts
of the husband, and even reproaches can be adminis-
tered without sacrifice of tenderness, denials without
disappointments, decisions without disputes. In short,
it is as easy to “manage” as it is difficult to “ govern”
them. We translate the following from M. de Balzac,
in illustration :

“One fine morning in the month of January, 1822,
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 383

 

Narrative from Balzac.

 

I ascended the boulevards of Paris, from the peaceful
spheres of the Marais, to the elegant regions of the
Chaussée d’Antin, remarking for the first time, and
not without a philosophic joy, those singular gradations
of physiognomy, and. those varieties of garb which
make each portion of the boulevard, from the Rue
Pas de la Mule to La Madeleine, an individual world,
and this whole Parisian girdle one great sampler of
manners. Having as yet no idea of the things of life,
and little suspecting that I should one day have the
hardihood to constitute myself a legislator of marriage,
I was going to breakfast with one of my college
friends who was, perhaps too early, afflicted with a
wife and two children. My former Professor of Math-
ematics resided within a short distance of my friend’s
house, and I decided to visit that worthy before de-
livering my stomach to all the dainties of friend-
ship. I penetrated easily to the interior of a cabinet
where every thing was covered with dust, attesting the
honorable distractions of the savant. A surprise
awaited me. I beheld a pretty woman seated upon
the arm of a large chair as though on horseback. She
made me one of those little conventional grimaces

seserved by housewives for persons whom they do not
384 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Narrative from Balzac.

 

know, but she did not so disguise the pouting air which
clouded her face on my arrival, but that I could per-
ceive the inopportuneness of my presence. Doubt-
less busy with an equation, my teacher had not yet
raised his head; so I waved my right hand toward the
lady, like a fish moving his fin, and withdrew on tiptoe
with a mysterious smile which might be interpreted,
‘It certainly shall not be I who will hinder you from
making him commit an infidelity to Polymnia.’? She
made one of those gestures of the head of which it is
impossible to describe the graceful vivacity.

“¢Eh, my good friend, don’t go away,’ cried the
geometrician. ‘It is my wife.’

“Then I saluted her more particularly. O! Cou-
lon, where wert thou at that moment to applaud the
only one of thy pupils who comprehended thy expres-
sion, ‘anacreontic,’ as applied to a reverence! The
effect must have been very penetrating, for Madame
de M. blushed and rose to go, returning a slight salute
which seemed to say, ‘ adorable!’

“Her husband detained her, saying, ‘Remain, my
child. It is one of my pupils. The young wife ad-
vanced her head toward the scholar, like a bird perched

upon a branch stretching its neck to receive a grain,
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 885

 

Narrative from Balzac.

 

“<Tt is impossible! resumed the husband with a
sigh, ‘and I am going to prove it by A plus B,’

“¢Ah, desist, I pray you,’ she replied, looking
toward me. If it had been only algebra my preceptor
would have comprehended this glance, but it was Chi-
nese to him, and he continued:

“<¢See, my child, you shall judge. We have an
income of ten thousand francs.’ At these words I
retired toward the door, as though seized with curiosity
to examine some article. My discretion was recom-
pensed by an eloquent glance. Alas! she little knew
the acuteness of my sense of hearing.

“<The principles of general economy,’ said my mas-
ter, ‘decree that one shall expend but two-tenths of his
income on the rent of his dwelling and the wages of
his servants; but our apartments and our retinue cost
one hundred louis. I allow you twelve hundred francs
for your wardrobe;’ (here he dwelt upon each sylla-
ble,) ‘the cucséne consumes four thousand francs; our
children require at least twenty-five louis; and I take
for myself but eight hundred francs. Washing, fuel,
and lights cost a thousand francs; so there remain,
as you see, only six hundred francs, which are not

sufficient for unforeseen expenses. To purchase the
886 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Narrative from Balzac.

 

diamond cross, it will be necessary to take one thou-
sand crowns from our capital, and this way once
opened, my little beauty, there will be no reason for
not leaving this Paris which you love so dearly; we
shall soon be compelled to remove to the country to
re-establish our impaired fortune. Children and ex-
penses will increase! Come, be wise!’

“<Tt is, indeed, necessary,’ said she. ‘But you will
be the only husband in Paris who has not made his
wife a New-Year’s present.’ And she slipped away
like a school-girl who had received a punishment.

“My preceptor shook his head joyfully. When he
saw the door close he rubbed his hands; we chatted
about the Spanish war, and I repaired to the Rue de
Provence, no more dreaming that I had just received
the first part of a grand conjugal lesson than I thought
of the conquest of Constantinople by General Diebitch.
I reached my Amphitryon at the moment when the pair
were seated at table, having awaited me for the half-
hour decreed by the ecumenical discipline of gastronomy.
It was, I believe, in opening a pdté de foie gras that my
pretty hostess said to her husband, with a resolute air:
‘Alexander, if you were very good you would give me

that set of diamonds that we saw at Fossin’s.’
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 387

 

Narrative from Balzac.

 

«“¢They are yours, then,’ pleasantly exclaimed my
comrade, drawing from his pocket-book three one thou-
sand franc notes which he flourished in the sparkling eyes
of his wife. ‘I can no more resist the pleasure of offer-
ing them,’ he added, ‘than you that of accepting them.
It is the anniversary of the day when I saw you for
the first time; perhaps the diamonds may cause you to
remember it?”

“<Méchant? said she, with a ravishing smile, and
drawing from her bosom a bouquet of violets, she cast
them with a childish gesture in my friend’s face. Alex-
ander handed her the price of the diamonds, exclaim-
ing: ‘I had seen the flowers!’

“T can never forget the quick movement and the
rapacious gayety with which the little woman seized the
three bank notes—like a cat placing her sheathed claw
upon a mouse. Blushing with pleasure she folded them
and put them—where the violets had shed their perfume
a moment before. I could not help thinking of my
Professor of Mathematics. I saw, at that time, no
difference between him and his pupil, save that of
economy and extravagance, little suspecting that he

who apparently best understood calculation reckoned

illest.
888 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Narrative from Balzac.

 

“The breakfast terminated very gayly. Soon in-
stalled in a little parlor newly decorated, and seated be-
fore a cheerful fire, I complimented the loving couple
upon the furnishing of their establishment.

“<Tt is a pity it all cost so dearly!’ said my friend;
‘but the nest must be worthy of the bird! Why, diable,
do you compliment me upon things not paid for? You
remind me, during my digestion, that I still owe two
thousand francs to a Turk of an upholsterer.’

“ At these words the mistress of the house invento-
ried with her eyes the pretty boudoir, and from brilliant
her face became thoughtful. Alexander took. me by
the hand and drew me into the embrasure of a window.

“<Do you happen to have a thousand pounds to lend |
me?’ said he in a low voice; ‘I have only ten or twelve
thousands pounds income, and this year—’

“¢ Alexander! cried the dear creature, interrupting
her husband, running to us and holding out the three
bank-notes, ‘ Alexander, I see my folly!’

“<“Why do you meddle? replied he; ‘keep your
money.’

“¢ But, my love, Truin you! I ought to have known
that you love me too much to permit myself to confide

to you all my wishes.’
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 3889

 

Narrative from Balzac.

 

“Keep it, my darling, it is well earned. Bah! I
shall get it back at play this winter!”

“<«Play! said she, with an expression of terror;
‘ Alexander, take back your notes! Come, sir, I wish it.’

“*No! no! replied my friend, pushing away the lit-
tle white and delicate hand, ‘are you not going on
Thursday to the ball of Madame 7

“<¢JT will think over your request, said I to my

 

friend, and departed with a salute to his wife, but I saw
very well that after the scene just enacted, my anac-
reontic reverences would not produce much effect. ‘He
must be a fool,’ thought I, ‘to talk of a thousand
pounds to a law student!’

“Five days later, I found myself at midnight at
Madame ’s ball. In the middle of the most brilliant
of the quadrilles I beheld the wives of my friend and

 

the mathematician. Madame Alexander had a ravishing
toilette, of which a few flowers and white muslin com-
prised the entire expense. She wore a little cross, a la
Jeannette, attached to a black velvet ribbon, which en-
hanced the whiteness of her perfumed skin, and long
pears of filigree gold adorned her ears; upon the neck
of Madame de M, scintillated a superb diamond cross.

‘This is droll!’ said I to a personage who had as yet
390 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Narrative from Balzac concluded.

 

neither read in the great book of the world, nor deci-
phered a single woman’s heart. That personage was
myself. If I had just then the desire of proposing a
dance to these two pretty women, it was only because
I perceived a secret of conversation which emboldened
my timidity.

“<Well, Madame, you have your cross?’ said I to
the first.

“¢But I earned it dearly she replied with an inde-
finable smile.

“<Ffow, no diamonds?’ I inquired of my friend’s wife.

“Ah, said she, ‘I enjoyed them during an entire
breakfast! But, you observe, I ended by conquering
Alexander.’

“«Was he easily seduced?’

“She answered me with a look of triumph.”

In this little story resides a whole treatise on domes-
tic happiness. It is not that Monsieur de M. was a
learned fool, nor that Alexander was a doting hypo-
crite. It is that woman has a perfect horror of convic-
tion; that she is easily persuaded to give that which no
force can extort from her; that she loves to be won—
to grant a favor; that exact reasonings irritate and vex

her; that the secret of governing her resides in mak-
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 391

 

Conjugal Politics. Science of Fig-leaves.

 

ing use of the weapon she herself possesses and uses
so often, her sensibility. It is in his wife, therefore,
rather than in himself that the husband will find
the elements of his power. Like the diamond she can
only be conquered by herself. Zo know how to offer
diamonds so as to have them returned, is a talisman
which applies to the most minute details of domestic
life. The politics of marriage resembles that of na-
tions—a bauble may lead the people where whole ar-
mies could never drive them!

The general education of our girls is as pernicious
as it could well be made. Reared with the idea that
the end and aim of their existence is marriage, they
are taught little which is calculated to prepare them
for its sacred and solemn duties. Dress is instilled
as the sole science worthy of female ambition—the ar-
rangement of that fig-leaf ‘‘ introduced” by Mother Eve.
They have heard for fifteen years, says Diderot, only
this: “My daughter, your fig-leaf fits badly; my daugh-
ter, your fig-leaf fits well; my daughter, would not
your fig-leaf be more becoming so?” Fed, almost ex-
clusively, upon works of fiction, their diseased intelli-
gence incessantly creates some imaginary hero with

whose impossible attributes they are wont to invest
892 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Pernicious Education vs. Conjugal Happiness.

 

their “intended,” and a miserable life-time barely suffices
to instruct them that the heroes of romance are as rare
as the Apollos of sculpture. Surely it is not surpris-
ing if they persist in the fruitless search for their ideal
long after the disenchantments of a marriage which
renders it thenceforth a crime. Nor if in the relations
of practical life they emulate the example of the spir-
atuelle princess, who, on being informed of a riot occa-
sioned by the scarcity of bread, exclaimed: “Why
don’t they eat cake!” Many noble women there are
who disengage themselves from these shackles and rise
to the true altitude of their station, but it is wonderful
to observe how many even of this class allow to be per-
petuated in thei daughters the same ruinous customs
which had well-nigh wrecked themselves. We know
hundreds of excellent matrons who are practically con-
versant with all the details of housekeeping, but whose
daughters can neither cook a dinner, nor soar beyond
the merest small talk of the drawing-room, nor do any
one thing in all this wide world passably well, save to
arrange their “fig-leaves” becomingly, and fliré with
equally vapid gallants. We see them return from their
“polishing schools””—these demotselles—cursed with a

superficial smattering of every thing but what they
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 393

 

Courting vs. Hygiene.

 

ought to have learned—physical and moral wrecks
whom we are expected to wind up in the morning for
the husband-hunting excitements of the evening. And
these creatures are intended for wives!* In vain do
we insist upon occupation, upon the necessity of work—
work with a sensible o}ject—as the sovereign remedy.
Now and again we are allowed the privilege of probing
a young: lady’s “accomplishments” for the purpose
of discovering whether by any possible chance some one
natural gift may have been allowed its normal devel-
opment. Alas! if in rare instances we can exclaim eu-
reka, and if, still less frequently, we succeed in inspiring
some faint glow of enthusiasm, the devil interposes in the
shape of some perfumed coxcomb, who is no more fitted
for the character of husband than our subject for that of
wife. Our hygienic rules are then laughed to scorn, and
we are coolly invited to accomplish by medicine what
only a thorough, radical, physical and mental revolution
can achieve. So the winding-up process is again resorted
to, and the victim is, literally, dressed for the sacrifice.
Such marriages must, in the nature of things, prove
unfortunate. But apart from these unions it can not be

*But wives only, for it is fast going out of fashion to intend them
for mothers—an “accident” of the kind being regarded as “‘ foolish 1”
394 “SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

The Idea of Ownership in Relation to “ Dishonor.”

 

denied that in our age and country the ideal of the
Christian marriage is very seldom realized. The vast
majority of unions, if not positively unhappy, are at
least only negatively fortunate. This can not be other-
wise if we reflect upon the nature, origin, and history
of matrimony. Unless contracted in solemn view of
its Divine end and object, with the sanction of the civil
law, and the blessing of God’s Church, it must depend
upon purely natural considerations, and every one of
the least experience in human disappointments knows
how these must always result. The ante-christian idea
of ownership and mastery has clung with astonishing
pertinacity to the marriage relation. To this reason,
more than all others, must be attributed the universal
want of sympathy accorded to the husband of an un-
faithful wife. He is like the jailer whose prisoner’s
escape provokes only ridicule. It is, perhaps, the only
grief at which cvery one laughs save the sufferer. The
crime of the guilty becomes the shame of the innocent,
and he is called “dishonored.” Blood alone can wash
away the stain; the world absolutely prescribes for him
to kill or be killed. Hvery-where, in proportion to the
weakening of Christian influence is the idea of owner-

ship and mastery regaining the ascendency. Another
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 395

 

“Marriages of Inclination.”

 

powerful cause of conjugal disappvintment is the stupid
notion that one can love but once. Love is charged

with blindness, and not without reason.

“Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind,
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind,”

says the great dissector of the human heart. Hence a
“first passion” is often an injudicious one—its object
being accredited with all that one wishes or can imagine
of goodness and perfection. On one side or on both,
“marriages of inclination” are very apt to be carnal.
Love perishes in the satisfaction of the senses, and the
true character of the parties being unveiled, the disen-
chantment leads frequently to the most pronounced
antipathies. “Love founded upon beauty does not
last,” says Plutarch. ‘Carnal marriages begin in joy
and end in despair,” says St. Gregory. When other
considerations than mere physical attributes do not
form the basis of union, the slander of a celebrated
pagan becomes an aphorism: “There are only two
happy days in marriage—the day of the nuptials and
the day of the funeral.”

We have said that conjugal tenderness has no
heroes. We of course referred to the facts of his-

tory. Let us record one for the honor of our sex:
396 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Story of a Conjugal Hero.

 

Many years ago we were called to an old lady
whom we found dying from “respectable poverty.”
Mal-nutrition, at an age when the system not only
tolerates, but demands those little luxuries which in ear-
lier life are superfluous, had but too surely done its
work, and our patient succumbed to a gangrene of the
extremities which no art could arrest. Among the
many friends who thronged the house, eager to minis-
ter to the needs discovered too late, was a young man
of twenty whose assiduous devotion attracted our es-
pecial notice. His form was beautifully athletic, and
he would have been strikingly handsome, but for the
ravages of a small-pox, which had not, however, de-
stroyed the regularity of his features, the beauty of his
hazel eye, nor the luxuriance of his dark-brown hair.
There was a grace and suppleness in every movement,
and a frankness and cordiality of manner which won
all hearts. No one seemed to know any thing of him
save that he was a stranger in the great city, where
success in his little mercantile enterprise was enabling
him to support a widowed mother and younger brother
and sister, whose home was in a distant State. He
had obtained the entrée to the house of sorrow and

poverty through his Church associations, and not only
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 897

 

Story of a Conjugal Hero.

 

his substantial aid, but his extremely efficient services
as nurse, soothed the last days of the old lady, and re-
lieved her anxiety in behalf of her two little daughters
of ten and twelve years—her only remaining charge.
The eldest of the two girls was a shy little maiden,
whose modesty and refinement bespoke the training she
had received from her who now lay stricken with inevita-
ble death. After the last sad rites we knew nothing of
the family save the assurance that they were “provided
for”—how, and by whom, we scarcely cared to inquire,
and the circumstance was displaced from our memory
by fresh scenes of trouble and desolation which the
kaleidoscope of a doctor’s life brings ever before his
eyes.

Ten years afterward we were summoned to visit
a young and beautiful woman, whose luxurious sur-
roundings bespoke the bride, even if the exultant mien
of the noble form by her bedside had been want-
ing. They were the shy little girl and the generous
youth of the death scene—she grown to a beautiful
woman, and he one of the “substantial men” of the
city—prominent in business and social circles as the
man of open heart and purse. But she lay ill now,

and the tenderness of his manner, the delicacy of his
898 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Story of a Conjugal Hero.

 

attentions, were beyond expression. A pregnancy, of
which this illness was the announcement, produced in
her system that degree of irritation—happily so seldom
witnessed—that one after another of her vital organs
became the seat of inflammatory action, which at
length involved the kidneys, and there was little hope
of her recovery.

We shall never forget how one midnight that we had
been summoned, he followed us back to our office to
learn the result of a microscopical investigation, which,
we had candidly informed him, was to settle the ques-
tion of life or death for his darling, nor his inexpress-
ible anguish when our worst fears were confirmed.
From that moment for three entire months he aban-
doned business—every thing, including sleep and rest,
to the care of his sick wife. He never left her side.
We never once failed to find him at his post, through-
out the most trying and apparently hopeless case we
had ever witnessed. At last we all supposed the fatal
moment had arrived—a still-born baby waited in its
little coffin to be buried with its mother, who lay un-
conscious, scarcely the faintest respiration irdicating
that the spirit still lingered. She died, apparently,

and we wondered next day, as we drove to the door—
SATAN IN SOCIETY. : 399

 

Story of a Conjugal Hero.

 

trying to con some soothing word to speak to that
truly disconsolate mourner—why the usual crape had
been omitted.* We solemnly declare that if the still-
born baby had sat erect in its coffin, we could hardly
have been more astonished than by the salutation
which feebly grected us, “Good morning, Doctor!’
from the lips of the woman we had believed, of course,
to be dead!

Scarcely less marvelous was the recovery which
followed. An enormous slough left exposed the ten-
dons, ligaments, vessels, and bones, of the entire lower

third of the back—while the legs were so “doubled”

* For the benefit of our medical readers, we give a brief recital of
the pathological features of this truly wonderful case: Coinci-
dently with the beginning of pregnancy was a pneumonia, attended
with complete hepatization of the right lung, followed by acute gas-
tritis, then hepatitis, and finally nephritis, with hematuria, al-
buminuria, ascites, and all the final phenomena of that desperate
condition. The labor, somewhat premature, was ushered in by con-
vulsions, followed by coma, stertorous respiration, etc., which con-
tinued forty-eight hours. A tympaniles—the most extensive we
ever saw—was accompanied by stercoraceous vomiting and total sup-
pression of urine. At length the pupil dilated to its utmost capac-
ity, the intervals of respiratory movements gradually lengthened,
and that peculiar metallic sound accompanied each expiration which
marks the moribund state. We beg our professional readers to be-
lieve that we never pretended to claim credit for this recovery, so

clearly a miracle of Trovidence!
400 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Story of a Conjugal Hero.

 

beneath her that for almost a year she propelled her-
self about her chamber by resting the palms of Ker
hands upon the floor. With indomitable patience and
perseverance the husband addressed himself to the
task of removing these last horrors. Under our di-
rection, he “dressed” and finally healed the frightful
hiatus in the back, and then with gentle force and
suave determination, he “worked at those legs” till in
eighteen months he had accomplished what modern
surgery had declared impossible. His beautiful wife
emerged from her two years’ seclusion erect as a
statue and more lovely than before. Alas, and alas!
that the truth permits us so apt an illustration of our
subject; the earliest use she made of her liberty was to
run away with a worthless fellov whom the devil had
endowed for the purpose with a smooth face and a cor-
rupt heart! Nor did the exquisite tenderness of this
altogether exceptional man stop here. It provided for
the maintenance and education of his wife’s younger
sister, and follows the perjured creature even into the
purlieus of her now forsaken misery—keeps want from
her door, and in an unseen and mysterious way informs
itself with scrupulous providence how best to soften

and assuage the bitterness of her lot! No more sub-
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 401

 

Story of a Conjugal Hero, Concluded.

 

lime picture has ever been presented to our view. We
can not help asking ourself, “Why Providence wrought
a special miracle to accumulate so much anguish?”
We do not know, unless to show what man may do
“seven times tried by fire.’ Why was the foolish wife
permitted to violate every principle of justice, honor,
gratitude, and morality? We do not know, unless
to show that only religion can guarantee the virtue
of woman.*

What passes in the heart of a young girl who loves?
She is entirely absorbed in her passion. Every thing
else vanishes—friends, parents, even God Himself is

obliterated. The loved object alone has any attraction

*We can almost hear the vile calumniator of every virtue ex-
claiming, ‘ What a fool, he hadn’t the spirit of a mouse!’’ Pardon,
sir, nothing is wanting in this picture—not even the physical cour-
age of which you make so much. Returning to his home one day at
an unwonted hour, he was “ presented’ to the coxcomb, who was
comfortably seated in the drawing-room. He bowed him civilly out,
and then quietly remarking to his wife that he feared the “ gentle-
man was not a proper person to visit her,’’ he made no further allu-
sion to the subject. Returning again ‘quite unexpectedly,” a day or
two afterward, he found “‘my gentleman” in the act of ringing for
admission. Nota word was exchanged, but a brief ‘‘ sparring exhi-
bition ” transpired on the sidewalk, out of which emerged one of the
oontestants with « physiognomy seriously damaged. It is needless
to explain that our conjugal hero was not the “injured party.” It

was probably this incident which precipitated the escapade.
° 34
\

402 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

“ Falling in Love.”

 

for her. She thinks of him all day, and dreams of
him all night. She worships and adores, her entire
being is fused in her love. She can imagine no other
felicity than to be near him, and in his absence she
thinks only of his return. In the midst of social
gayeties and festivities she only sees him, only hears
his voice. At first so timid and fearful in his presence
that a look causes her to blush and tremble, a word
magnetizes her from head to foot, she soon feels at
ease only by his side. All other companions are dis-
pleasing to her. Then, in proportion to the innocence
and purity of her nature, she yields herself to the
most delightful intimacy—the most absolute confidence.
She says whatever she thinks, whatever she feels; or,
what she does not dare to say, she looks. It is her
very innocence which constitutes her danger. And
this innocence—even that which falls—is a great and
holy thing. It is its profanation only which should
be anathematized. The object of all this blind passion
may be a graceless puppet, a stupid ignoramus, a
worthless scoundrel—or, worse than all, a libertine.

If obstacles are thrown in her way—if she be im-
prudently crossed in the indulgence of her love, she

speedily becomes cunning and provident in the interest
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 403

 

Cunning of Young Girls “in love.”

 

of her passion. She finds the most incredible re-
sources in her instincts, in her woman-nature a degree
of assurance and skill in evading the penetrating eyes
of a mother, or the perspicacity of a father which are
truly astonishing. She finds methods of giving natural
and satisfactory explanations to the most difficult situ-
ations. She readily ascertains, and with marvelous art
conciliates all those who may be of service to her in
the furtherance of her desires. The character of Julict
affords a truthful view of the wonderful rapidity with
which the young girl passes from artless timidity to
the most cunning duplicity. To her mother entering
the chamber whence her lover has that moment es-
caped, she exclaims:

Who is’t that calls? Is it my lady mother?
Is she not down so late, or up so early?
What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither?

LADY CAPULET.
Why ! how now, Juliet?

JULIFT.
Madam, I am not well.

LADY CAPULET.
Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?
What! wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
And if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live ;
Therefore, have done: Some grief shows much of love;
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.
404

SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Scene from Romeo and Juliet.

 

JULIET.
Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.
LADY CAPULET.
So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
Which you weep for.
JULIET.
Feeling so the loss,
I can not choose but ever weep the friend.
LADY CAPULET,
Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death,
As that the villain lives which slaughtered him.

JULIET.
What villain, madam ?
LADY CAPULET.
That same villain, Romeo.

JULIET.
Villain and he are many miles asunder.
God pardon him! I do with all my heart ;
And yet, no man, like he, doth grieve my heart.

LADY CAPULET.

That is, because the traitor murderer lives.

JULIET.

Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands.
? Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death t

LADY CAPULET.
We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:
Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua,—
Where that same banish’d runagate doth live,—
That shall bestow on him so sure a draught,
That he shall soon keep Tybalt company ;
And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.

y
‘ SATAN IN SOCIETY. 405

 

Time will ‘‘cure”’ the Delusions of Love.

 

JULIET.

Indeed, I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo, till I behold him—dead—

‘Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex’d :—
Madam, if you could find out but a man
To bear a poison, I would temper it;
That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,
Soon sleep in quiet.—O, how my heart abhors
To hear him named,—and can not come to him,—
To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt
Upon his body that hath slaughter’d him!

LADY CAPULET.

Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man.
But, now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

° . . . .

JULIET.

I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,

I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear,
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Paris ;—These are news indeed !

To cure these attachments when unfortunate in their
object, time alone is necessary—time, which so surely
brings its disenchantments after the irrevocable step, is
equally potent to prevent ill-assorted unions if only
the indispensable management be judiciously employed.
Consent should not be withheld, the condition of post-
ponement only need be insisted on, a concession read-
ily obtained in most cases. Then situations should be

gontrived, calculated to bring before the eyes of the
406 SATAN IN SOCIETY,

 

How a Girl recovers from misplaced Love.

 

deluded girl those qualities in her lover, which, odious
to every one else, will soon end by becoming so to her-
self.* It should be remembered that the most ardent
love of which a woman is capable is readily abandoned
if of and by herself she discovers that the soul and the
heart are not in relation with the outside which has
attracted her, if reason has had time to weigh the real
value of the object. She then abandons her lover fully
and completely. She may still cherish the ideal with
which she had invested infary she may even mourn its loss
with a grief bordering upon the tragic, but’ she rarely
fails to search for it elsewhere, and her heart is none
the worse for the encounter.

It were easy to accumulate evidence of our assertion,
that only Christian marriages can be permanently happy.
This we think has been already sufficiently shown in these
pages from the records of past ages which teem with the
proofs. Not only do all pagan authorities and the pages
of the Old Testament attest it, but through the centuries
of the Christian era, in proportion as man rejects the

* We know of a certain father who skillfully managed a “cure” by
taking the young man into his family and there “ exhibiting his
paces” with such tact and skill, that the young lady soon presented

“the mitten.” Not u word was said against the young gentleman
from first to last.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.: 407

 

Divine Grace necessary to Happiness.

 

salutary influence of woman, the human race is rude
and savage, and in exact relation to the weakening or
dilution of the Christian religion, is the reduction of
marriage to the mere carnal association where Adonis is
invited to the wedding instead of Christ, Venus instead
of His Blessed Mother. Such inevitably bring disap-
pointments, regrets, and loss of love. This is altogether
what might be expected from the Divine nature of
the contract, as in all his religious relations man is
constantly taught both by precept and experience that
only the grace of God can keep him true to his obliga-
tions and faithful to the end. We trust then that none
of our readers “ professing” Christianity will smile at
our assertion, that special supernatural gifts are abso-
lutely required for the attainment of true domestic
happiness. Such special gifts can only be obtained by
a compliance with the conditions imposed by Him who
ordained “holy wedlock,” and still blesses those whom
He “joins together!”

Between those who unite on this holy ground, who
contract marriage with Christian judgment and Chris-
tian preparation, there can be but little fear of failure
in attaining a degree of happiness which shall increase

and strengthen with advancing years, which shall far
408 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

Ideal of the Christian Marriage.

 

transcend their liveliest anticipations, and which, as no
other earthly condition, forestalls the joys of Heaven!
In this holy alliance there can be no such word as
mastery. Neither is superior, neither inferior. Their
qualities mingle by exchange. The wife is strength-
ened by the husband, who in turn is made better by
the wife. Tenderness, tempering passion with sympa-
thy, blends their two hearts in one. Other objects of
affection they may have—children, parents, relations,
and friends—none can equal, none can compare with
each other in their hearts. They have nothing to fear
from the lapse of time. Only wrong emotions bring ugly
wrinkles. A life of happiness and virtue imparts such
ineffable sweetness to the countenance that time seems
to give even more than it takes. It is related of Michel
Angelo that when some person objected that he had
represented the Virgin Mary as beautiful when no
longer young, he replied: “Do you not see that the
beauty of her soul has preserved that of her counte-

nance?”
CONJUGAL APHORISMS.,

lL
HUSBAND is generally the architect of his own

misfortunes.
II.

Love does not stand still. It moves—forward or

backward.
EL.

A husband should never indulge in pleasures which
he has not the talent to render reciprocal.
IV.

Conjugal pleasures should never degenerate into

habits.
Vv.

Modesty is a feminine attribute which should be
preserved or cultivated, but never destroyed.
VIL
Prodigality of personal charms leads Love to bank-

ruptcy. ;
35
410 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

VII.
Women like to feel that a man desires to grant what

he may be compelled to refuse.

Vill.
He who can manage one woman can govern a nation.

The converse is not always true.

IX.
Women can “live upon air”—but not without it.
Many conjugal apartments are rendered sad by ill-

ventilation.
X.

A man may love several at the same time: a woman

but “one at a time, and often.”

XI.

The man who assumes that a woman can love but

once, is an egotist or a fool.

XII.

Women are more faithful and less constant than men.

XIII.

Jealousy in a man is an inconsistent passion; he is

loved or he is not loved—in either case jealousy is

useless.
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 411

 

XIV.
When a woman takes suddenly to habits of devotion,
she is almost always struggling with a new love or for-

getting an old one—often both.

XV.
The man who forces idleness upon his wife, exposes
her to every temptation that can assail a woman.
XVI.
Naturally speaking, love once lost is never regained.
XVII.
When a woman, hitherto industrious, becomes idle,
the chances are thousands to one that she is “ falling

in love.”
XVIII.

Sudden and unwonted scrupulousness of toilet an-

nounces love.
XIX.

All the faculties of a woman are at the service of

her love.
XX.

Two mysteries of a woman’s heart: 1. She forgets
even the favors she has accorded to one whom she has
ceased to love; 2. She loves in proportion to the fa-

vors she has bestowed.
412 SATAN IN SOCIETY.

 

XXI,

Every husband of genius should be a strenuous ad-
vocate of indissolubility—it takes away all hope of
“doing better.”

XXII.
A woman deceives to conceal what she feels—a man

to pretend what he does not feel.

XXIII.
The idea of ownership and mastery involves despair

for the wife and dishonor for the husband.

XXIV.

Illicit love renders a woman indulgent to the faults

of others—ceasing to love she becomes more severe.

XXV.

Money forms no element in conjugal happiness; its

possession can not purchase, nor its loss forfeit affection.

XXXVI.

The only recipe for permanent happiness in wed-

lock: Christianity.

THE END.
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