Radiant Motherhood/Chapter 11

THE higher the evolution of the creatures, the more is the parental responsibility shared by both parents. Among human beings the institution of monogamy, which is universally accepted as a higher form of human relation than polygamy, involves in the dual partnership a certain sharing of the actual physical difficulties of parenthood by the father which is not entailed in the fatherhood of a polygamous establishment. In fact, a pure monogamy strictly maintained, does really affect the physical aspects of expectant fatherhood more than it ​does the physical aspects of expectant motherhood.

The modern pair, being intensely and deeply united, the effects of the experiences and physical states of one have actual reverberations and physical effects on the other. In this respect the change in the girl's attitude of mind towards the man, which is sometimes a result of the physical effect of motherhood (see Chapter III), may have a very far reaching influence upon the man's health and happiness if he does not comprehend the cause of this experience, and, through comprehension, know how to endure or overcome it. Undoubtedly a home which is disturbed by uncomprehended antagonisms or suppressed irritations has a physical effect on the general mental balance, and consequently on the whole health of the pair involved.

The way in which these difficulties can be overcome is by a mutual comprehension, so far as is possible, of the needs of each other, and sometimes perhaps by the attitude of "bowing before the storm" until it has passed, recognizing that it is a phenomenon beyond human control.

Beyond this may be subtler and more intricate reverberations from his wife's state. The actual physical fact has to be faced by the father-to-be that perhaps rapidly following on the period when all his natural desires for a completed sex union with his wife were met ​and consummated by equal desires in her, there comes a time when such impulses on his part are not only not responded to by his wife, but are perhaps antagonized and may be entirely thwarted by either her mental or her physical condition.

In Chapter XII, I will show how, to some extent, and at probably rather long intervals, his impulses may be not only satisfied but may be harmoniously responded to and may be profoundly valuable. Nevertheless, in almost every period of coming fatherhood, there will be at least some months when bodily union is actively repugnant and consequently actively harmful, to the wife. At such a time the instinctive feeling of the mother against any act should be sufficient to bar it, because, even if the act itself should not be harmful, to force her will at such a time or to lure her into coercing herself against her own will is in itself harmful. A young husband, therefore, will be faced by periods in which it will be impossible for him to have any of the unions to which he may have become accustomed and which his natural virility may at first continue to demand.

This difficulty is of very varying intensity for different types of men. Some feel it so acutely that, although they may do so with deep shame, they yield to the impulses and are unfaithful to their wives in a bodily sense, just at ​the time when of all others they may be mentally and spiritually most deeply united to her. Such shameful conflict of will with deed must have blackened many a father's memory, and, with due understanding of all the circumstances, it should be eliminated from our race: it should not take place. Nature has created a way out for the man who deeply loves and is in sympathetic rapport with his wife. While the wife on whom he centres all his desires and love is in a bodily condition which deprives her from such an experience as a complete union with him, this fact has a mental and consequently a physical reaction on the better type of man, and he finds, sometimes even to his surprise, that the instinctive impulses to which he has been accustomed die down. At first perhaps becoming only sufficiently dormant to be conquered by a deliberate exertion of the will, but as the weeks pass and the inhibition from his wife increases, its reaction stills his desire also, and his need for unions may temporarily cease.

This is partly to be explained as a nervous reaction due to his anxiety and his concentration of nervous force on his wife, which tend to inhibit the setting free of the vital energy which would otherwise demand an outlet.

The vitality, the physical state, the needs, however, of different men vary very greatly, ​and there are those who really do require some physical assistance in addition to will power and even a religious determination to help them through this time of difficulty. For such I recommend daily thorough washing in cold water of the organs of generation, and when an over-mastering desire may come, the soaking of the whole body in as hot a full length bath as can be borne.

It may perhaps sound fantastic because one has not yet scientific proof (neither had Leonardo da Vinci when he casually made the first announcement that our earth is a planet of the Sun), but I think, in addition to the physical presence of the secretions potentially demanding exit, that a very important factor in the desire for sex union is an electrical accumulation within the system, and undoubtedly the soaking in hot water tends to disperse this tension, and to allay the urgency for a desire for a sex union.

These two simple physical assistances, combined with a definite will to maintain himself purely for his wife, and the definite concentration of his nervous energy to her support with the desire to contribute everything possible, mental and bodily, to the well-being of his child, should suffice to keep the body of a normal man in that condition which his best instincts will approve. Others more acutely handicapped by incorrigible physical requirements, may ​have a hard time; if it is insupportable, the explanation of that may be the existence of some slight physical abnormality for which they should and can get medical treatment.

After the restraint of the time of betrothal, followed by the usage of the honeymoon, the strain of almost total deprivation again, due to the wife's pregnancy, is greater on the husband than it need be; and this is another argument in favour of deferring conception for at least some months or a year after the wedding. (Cf. Married Love, Chapter IX).

Even when, as is indicated later, there may come times when the impulse of the potential family is to unite, the physical condition of the mother may offer a hindrance to the customary form of union, but this with tact and intelligence may be surmounted.