Herself by Edith Belle Lowry (red novels txt) 📕

In the study of plants we learn that the pollen or male element must unite with the ovum or female element in order to produce the seed that will develop into the new plant. The same fact is true of the human race. Before pregnancy can take place there must be a meeting and fusion of the vital elements of the two sexes. This fertilization of the ovum or joining of the male and female elements is called conception. It is brought about by coitus, by means of which the semen of the male is deposited in the vagina of the female. This act is called insemination, although conception does not follow unless the ovum and spermatozoon (life-giving element of the semen) come together and unite. When this occurs the woman conceives and enters upon a period of pregnancy. The time at which conception is least likely to occur is from the seventeenth to the twenty-third day after menstruation ceases.

During the first year of married life couples are liable to abuse the love sense by over-indulgence and thereby use up too much of their energy. This affects their health, especially that of the young wife, who finds herself always being tired and is unable to account for it. Her daily tasks become a drudgery, for she is too exhausted to have the strength to perform them. After the tasks finally are finished, she is too tired to don the afternoon dress, and so easily falls into untidy habits. This brings its train of results. The young husband, on his return from work, fails to find his wife the bright, attractive girl he married and gradually grows indifferent.

The relation of intercourse to conception is a problem that each husband and wife must settle for themselves. Some educators claim that only for the one is the other allowable, that the bearing and raising of children is the sole aim of married life. Naturally this is the fundamental end of the sex instinct. But in the present-day, practical married life it would be impossible to convince the majority that the impulse of sex gratification was given to them for this one purpose only.

The sense of well being and the increased capacity for work, that follows a moderate exercise of this function, tends to convince us that it has a beneficial effect upon the entire system if exercised moderately. As to what constitutes moderation or temperance depends upon the individual. What would be moderation to some would be excess to others. It may be taken as a general rule that the after-effects will indicate the amount. If the after-effects are irritability, extreme lassitude or a diminution of the love or respect for the other then there has been excess. If the after-effect is a sense of well-being so that the next day one feels more inclined to take up the duties of life, then it may be considered that moderation has been practiced. A certain amount of energy is consumed in any act and, as in our present age we need a great deal of energy to carry on our everyday business, in the majority of cases fresh vitality cannot be spared for an expenditure under several days or a week. Excess in anything tends to bring on premature old age, for the nervous force is expended faster than it is manufactured.

Frequently women seem to be endowed with an excess of energy which manifests itself in various forms. Besides this, the woman does not seem to have control of her nervous energy but wastes it in numerous ways. With many a woman the regularity and moderation attendant on a happy married life seems to have a regulating effect upon her whole nervous system, so that she becomes more calm and has greater control over her energies.

Wrong training or lack of training in matters pertaining to the relationship of the sexes and to the management of a home may be given as the cause of the majority of unhappy marriages.

There must be something wrong with our system of education when the aim of this education seems to be to prepare the girl for a temporary position in an office or store or for a gay social life; and when there is no preparation for the important work of home-making and the rearing of children. A girl would not be expected to run a complicated and delicate piece of machinery without having adequate instruction concerning the necessary care of it. But the girl is allowed to go blindly into marriage and is expected to manage her home and care for her children with practically no preparation. Nowadays we require experts for every position except that of motherhood, but we apparently do not consider that of enough importance to waste any time preparing for it. A man requires his gardener or office assistant to be trained, but the mother of his children need know nothing regarding the preparation for their coming. Too often her only preparation is that of making numerous clothes. She takes no measures to insure a healthy child.

If girls would make a study of home-making and motherhood and enter into marriage with a more definite realization of its obligations we would have fewer unhappy marriages and fewer divorce cases. Some women, owing to false education, wish to have all the advantages of marriage without assuming its cares. Such a woman expects a man to be willing to provide her with all the gifts of the gods, with all the luxuries of life, but in return is not willing to become the mother of his children nor to exert herself to make their mutual habitation a home and not merely a house—a place in which to eat and sleep.

A large part of the average woman's life is devoted to home-making and the rearing of children. Usually she is poorly prepared for this work. The early years of a girl's life are spent in the acquisition of a store of general knowledge, especially that derived from books and related to subjects generally considered necessary to "culture." During this period, her time is so occupied with her studies that her mother thinks it would be an imposition to ask her to do any housework, so the girl grows up without much knowledge of the care of a home. True, she often is enabled to do a few things. She learns to make cake and several varieties of candy and perhaps can fashion a collar that is the envy of her schoolmates. Sometimes she even helps her mother with the dishes or the dusting, but it is easier for the mother to take the responsibility of the housekeeping than it is to teach her daughter to do so, and besides her daughter always is so busy with school affairs. She has no time in which to learn the science of housekeeping.

After the completion of her course in the common or high school, a few months, sometimes, are devoted to the preparation for a certain line of work which is to occupy her time for a few years. Very few girls, except those who enter the professions, expect to continue their work after marriage and nearly all look forward to marriage. If we place a girl at a new occupation, for instance lace-making, and let her work out her own salvation, we would not be surprised if she disliked her work and was unable to accomplish any good results. But that is what we do in regard to home-making. A girl upon marriage is expected to know by instinct how to keep house, cook, and do the numerous other household duties; she is expected to know how to care for herself before the birth of her baby and how to care for the baby when it comes. Fortunately for the future generation this fact has come to the realization of many of our educators. During the last few years many schools have introduced into their curriculum, courses in domestic science, including the purchasing, preparation and serving of food. Very recently some of the more progressive schools have introduced courses in nursing and the care of young babies. Perhaps in a few years motherhood will take its proper place as the most important of all sciences.