Page:Contraception; 1st ed. (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.94163).pdf/120

stimulus or contact with a beloved wife is a very different thing from celibate absorption in work apart from feminine companionship. Temporary periods of abstention in marriage, particularly when the abstention is an act of love in the interests of a temporarily indisposed wife, are not likely to have any harmful physiological result, and are attainable by any man with a normal strength of will and character. But total abstention for life, or for many years, does have results in general harmful both to the individual and the society in which he lives.

Depending on the physiological characters and temperament of the man, three main results are to be expected from total abstention in marriage over protracted periods:—

1. The man of sex vitality below par or the man engaged on very absorbing and strenuous intellectual work is, on the whole, likely to achieve this enforced celibacy within marriage without any very material disturbance of his physiological functions, but with the probable result that if it is extended over many years his potential fertility may be reduced or totally lost (see p. 98). And even with the best will in the world he will hardly prevent himself getting