L-


SATAN IN SOCIETY
A PLEA FOR SOCIAL PURITY
A Discussion of k True Rights of Woman
AJARITAL AND SOCIAL
BY THE LATE
NICHOLAS FRANCIS COOKE, M. D, LL. D.

SATAN 11N SOCIETY
o ^ o
EXPRESSIONS OF OPINION
Cardinal Gibbons says: "The work merits the grati-
tude of every one who loves purity of morals, and has at heart
the well-being of society. ]
"With a pen exquisitely delicate, he lays bare this gigantic
social evil and with a knowledge born of vast experience sug-
gests its remedy. May God bless his efforts, and reward them
by generating in society a higher, purer moral atmosphere."
The Period, (Cincinnati) says: "It is a book second to
none in importance that has ever been written in the English
language."
From the Christian Standard, Cincinnati: "There
13 not a sentence in this book which pander^ to a vulgar
curiosity—nothing of which the impure can t^ke advantage.
We should be more than willing to have those of vicious taste
read it, for its terrible revelations of the horrors of vice are
such as may startle them before they have gotne too far, and
can not in any way be made to minister to unholy purposes.
"The writer deals with his subject religiously!, and the whole
book is redolent with the fragrance of a purc£ heart.
"It ought to be read by married people anj3 those contem-
plating marriage, but especially by parents, with a view to act
an enlightened part in the most sacred and responsible relations
of life."
Ocean, (Chicago) ss ijs: "Dealing
"snored to the detriment of happinegj
Br, Gay-lord'D. Beebe, of Chicago, said? "This
volume discusses with great ability subjects which have long
agitated the earnest philanthropists of the times. If the work
possessed no other merit than its lofty utterances upon the
subject of antenatal infanticide its author would have merited
the gratitude of every lover of humanity; but he has dared
to speak plainly upon other vices and pernicious habits found
in 'good society,' and has uttered warnings well-timed and
earnest, which, if heeded, cannot fail to ultimate in incalcul-
able good to many who may err through ignorance. Should
any assume that this book appeals to the prurient tastes of
a class of readers, that is the very person who will be able to
make a personal application of many of its truths, and to profit
by them. Who shall say that subjects which touch the every-
day life of the masses are not proper subjects upon which to
elevate and enlighten those masses? A great evil has been
that boys and girls have been kept profoundly ignorant, and
intentionally so by parents, until Satan taught them to pactice
what those same parents should have taught them to shun.
The work bears ample evidence of having been written to serve
a useful purpose by 'one who loves his fellow-men; 'and as an
embodiment of sound views upon a class of subjects too little
understood, it commends itself to an intelligent public. Viewed
from a medical standpoint, there are few physicians who
could not gather from this volume many very valuable hints."
"This book," as The Christian World says, "unmasks
Satan in what is undoubtedly his stronghold—the sexual
nature and relation."
The Boston News says: "It is of the highest tone, and
is an able treatise upon the vices which arise from a lack of
observation of the laws of nature."
The Ijouisville (Ky.) Evening" Ledger says: "ft
is destined to accomplish much good. The book should be in
the hands of every married person, and every one contem-
plating marriage; of every parent, and, in fact, of every person
of mature years. It is a remarkable, interesting, and valuable
work."
The Morning Dispatch, Erie, Pa., says: "The
author talks to the point, in language both chaste and elegant.
It is a work that should certainly be read by every young man
and woman in the country."
The Kentucky Statesman, Lexington, Ky., says:
"This work will prove to those who can profit by its warnings
an inestimable blessing, especially to parents with young child-
ren it may prove a warning in time to save."
From the Evening Express, Rochester, N. Y.: "It
is a thorough and bold exposure of the evils in society con-
nected with sexual relations, written by an eminent phys-
ician, and yet told so chastely and judiciously that prurient
curiosity finds no gratification in its pages. It is a book which
can be safely read by the young, and which should be read
by most of all, young men."
The Chicago Times, says: "In chaste, firm and fear-
less language points out the sins of society and indicates their
remedy."
From the Chicago Herald: "Dr. Cooke was one of
Chicago's most eminent physicians. His eminent success as a
physician, his broad and liberal training and his high Chris-
tian character and culture especially fitted him to deal with the
delicate and important subjects treated of in "Satan in Society."
The Boston Journal, says: "The author has boldly,
but with delicacy, discharged his important duty, speaking of
matters which are too often so carefully concealed that early
death, or what is worse, protracted years of suffering are caused
from the very want of the information which this volume
contains."
he Ohio Medical and Surgical Reporter says:
The author is a physician, but he is something more, he is an
enlightened and fearless moralist and we heartily wish his
words might go through society and purge it of its accumu-
lated dross."
From the Morning Utica (New York) Herald:
"Many a volume, professing the same object with the one
before us, has served only to inflame the passions and nourish
the vices it sought to check. The subjects treated are far too
delicate to be intrusted to unskillful hands. It is a sense of
this danger that has led a large class of Christian people to
look with suspicion on every attempt to awaken the public
mind to the real extent and heinousness of those vices which
corrupt both single and married life. They think the young
can best be kept pure by remaining in ignorance of the evil
habits which exist in society. This might be a very good
theory if it were not wholly impracticable. Youth cannot be
kept innocent forever, but they can by proper education be
made virtuous. And parents have to choose whether they
will allow their children to go out from home ignorant alike of
the existence of social vices and their frightful consequences,
and the means of escaping them: or will prepare them to com-
bat successfully this 'Satan in Society,' by furnishing them
with the weapons and armor of knowledge. The choice, it
seems to us, is an easy one. There is no possibility of keeping
the young in ignorance of the dangers that beset them, except
by banishing all newspapers and periodicals from the house-
hold, and the young from all schools—almost from society
itself. Who would attempt such an Ixionic task?
The work is complete in one handsome octavo volume of 426^
pages. Bound in paper, 50 cents. English cloth, silk finish.
$1.25.
For sale by all Newsdealers, Booksellers and on all Railway
Trains, or will be sent prepaid on receipt of price.
F. T. NEELY, Publisher, Chicago.
INTRODUCTION.
HIS book is not simply a treatise upon any one oi
1 the vices which arise from the perversion of
natural instincts. It treats of all those vices which
invade the domestic sanctuary and destroy the health
and morals of old or young therein. No one who
has not essayed a similar work can possibly imagine
how difficult, how disagreeable, how fraught with
social penalties such a labor is, and it is great and
deserved praise to say that the author has performed
his self-imposed task with unusual fidelity an#
sincerity, and a chasteness and purity of mind and
thought which leave nothing to be desired. Of all
the numerous works which I have read, I have
found nothing so truthful and at the same time so
unexceptionable in style, so noble and pure in pur-
pose. That there are one or two minor points
concerning which I might differ with the author,
deteriorates nothing from my estimate of it as a
whole.
Concerning those prevalent and disastrous vices
which spring from ignorance or willful perversion
of the physiological laws of the sexes, society has

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4
INTRODUCTION.
too long imitated the example of the ostrich, who,
when danger menaces, contents herself with thrust-
ing her stupid head under her wing. No great
moral evil was ever yet reformed by ignoring it.
The blood of all the martyrs cries out against the
possibility of such a thing. The innocence of the
babe is beautiful—in babies; but the human being
who has left the confines of babyhood, to be
preserved from the knowledge of vice must be
kept in a glass case; and even then the time would
come when Nature herself would whisper the secret.
What adult human beings need is virtue—a moral
strength which, knowing the existence of evil, can
yet stand firm against it. When all our youth
shall be properly trained concerning those beautiful
laws and provisions of nature which relate to the
tenderest and holiest ties of life, and of which the
good mother herself no more makes a secret than
she does of the inflation of the lungs, or the
circulation of the blood, the moral atmosphere will
be easily purged of the miasma which has gathered
in the darkness of concealment; and then, and not
till then, there will be little need of even such
carefully and chastely written books as "Satan in
Society^' Caroline F. Oorbin.
CONTENTS.
Intboduotion Pages 3-4
Biogbaphicai* Sketch of Author Pages 408-426
APOLOGIA.
Encouragement to the Author—Recent Authors on Female
Onanism—Human Pride leads to Destruction—True Pro-
gress 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 Qpe
Bight—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 Collapse 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 Discussion forced upon us—Our Hopes
and Aims—Authors from whom we have drawn—Con-
fessions— Let our Object plead for us Pages 15-46
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6
CONTENTS.
L
EDUCATION AND TBAINING 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 Roues—Parents and Guard-
ians criminally responsible for this Vice—Where may Boys
receive their first Lessons in Crime-^Culpable Custom—Boys
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"
Pages 47-59
n.
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 Defects—Sunshine and Air carefully
excluded—Physical Improvement of the Mothers
Demanded—Maidenly Freshness and Innocence becoming
a Myth—Early Isolation of the Sexes—Love of Dress in
Girls—A New and Horrible Rivalry—Children's Parties —
Boarding-Schools dangerous to the Physical and Moral
Natures—Influence of Music, Dancing, etc.—In the Abuse
CONTENTS.
7
of Good Things, Evil generally Consists—No intermediate
Stage between Childhood and Adult Age—Privileges of
acknowledged Lovers—Pictorial Illustration—American
Courtship—Warm Appeal to the Young Women of
America—Wherein the danger Lies—Matrimony the End
and Aim of Existence—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 Negligence of Home Duties—Women's
Rights, Babies' Wrongs—Case Supposed—Spiritual Children
of "Old Maids" Pages 60-84
III.
MALE MASTURBATION.
The most Frequent, as well as most Fatal, of all Vices—
Masturbation 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. continued—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—Fearful Pre-
valence of this Vice in Boarding-Schools—Sudden Dete-
rioration of Youthful Prodigies .Pages 85-99
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—
8
CONTENTS.
History of a Young Heiress of Ten or Twelve Tears—An
old Governess Satan's Agent in the Affair—Mental and
Moral Symptoms—Onanism a solitary, also a Contagious
Vice—Double Onanism—Husband and Wife alike Guilty-^-
Suspicious Circumstances [Requiring Investigation—Avoid
not the Subject through False Delicacy Pages 100-111
V.
THE SACKED RIGHTS OF OFFSPRING.
Tha 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 Physician Undertaking it, a Monster
and a Scoundrel—Dangers to the] Mother Incidental to
Abortion—Result of the Correspondence—Several Illustra-
tive Cases—Cases continued—Enormous Prevalence of
Child-Murder—Thoughts which are not Pleasant—Un-
scrupulous and Careless Practitioners Largely Responsi-
ble—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 common in Ancient Times—Let the
Infant have the "Benefit of a Doubt"—Our Nation becom-
ing Worse than the Pagans of Old Pages 112-132
VI.
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF MARRIAGE.
Why the Earlier Scenes of the Drama are Elaborated and
Exposed—The man and Woman just before Marriage—
CONTENTS.
9
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—Domestic Unhappiness
in its Worst Forms—The Nuptial Chamber—Advice to
the Husband—Further advice to the Husband—Advice to
Husband continued—How Often may the Conjugal Act be
Repeated?—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 con-
tinued—Effects similar to those of Masturbation—Illustra-
tive Case—Injunction of Continence—Case continued—
Injunction Disregarded—"So Ought Men to Love their
Wives as their own Bodies "—The Law Ignores Cruelty in
the Exercise of "Marital Rights "—Case in Court—Strong
Evidence—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 during Lactation—The Sexual
Instinct in Old Age—Intercourse after "Change of Life"
The Amorous Old Man—Ridiculous and Contemptible—
"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
Organs of Generation—Intercourse during Menstruation—
Ill-assorted Marriages—Bitter Regrets and Criminal Hopes-
Resort to Adulterous Love—Effect on the Man—Prohibitory
Laws Demanded—The Products of Such Marriages—
10
CONTENTS.
Illustrative Cases—The Wife should never be Senior of the
Husband—True Procreative Maturity—Minimum Marriage-
able Age in different Countries—Five Years the Minimum*
Fifteen the Maximum Difference—Consanguinity—Customs
of Different Nations—Consequences of Marriage between
Kelations—Marriages between Blood Eelations—Albinos—
Physical Anomalies in Villages—Who may Marry—Trans-
mission of Organic Peculiarities—Transmission of Defects—
Crossing of Kaces and Temperaments—Nuptial Contamina-
tion—Faulty Conformation—Sex of Offspring—Influence of
Moral 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 Resemblan-
ces—Theory of Mutual Resemblance of Man and Wife—Man
is soon Weary of mere Carnal Pleasure—Translation from
Proudhon—The Married and Celibates contrasted—How
Marriage saves from Debauch Pages 132-207
VII.
WOMAN WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY.
Regeneration of the Race—The Fall of Adam and the
Redemption—Eve —The First Marriage—God's Benediction
on Marriage—Matrimonial Condition of Noah and his
Three Sons—Who could claim recognition as Mrs. Jacob ?—
Degradation of Woman among the Ancients—Stones of trie
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 herself—Absolute
Authority of the Roman Paterfamilias—Mancipatio—
CONTENTS.
11
Powers It conferred—The Statue of Woman in Rome for
Three Centuries—Effect of the Law of the Twelve Tables-
Statement of Pere Lacordaire—Commencement of the
Story of Halgerda—Betrothal by her father without her
Consent—Murder of her Husband—Thorwaldus—The
Father changes his mind—Halgerda consulted—God
extends His protecting Arm over the World—All Theogonies
mention a Virgin Mother—Advent of the Redeemer glad-
dening 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 Reproach but an Honor—Story of Perpetua
and Felicitas—Absolute and Divine Prohibition of Divorce
—Quotations from the greatest Primitive of 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—Mohammedism—Effects
on Women—Accumulation of Fat, A Bine Qua Nbn—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 Polygamists—Downfall of Monogamy Predicted
—A Militant Power Second 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 Essay of Julia Ward
Ilowe—The late "Anti-Council" at Naples—Infidelity can
not succeed without the Women—Reform only Possible
through Christianity.,... .Pages 208-264
12
CONTENTS.
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 Reproductive
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—Woman under-
stands Individuals—She has the Genius of Charity—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 Ancedote—
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—
Ancedote—Intellect and Heart—Genius and Charity—
Ineradicable Differences—Equality of the Sexes
Pages 265-300
IX.
WHAT CAN WOMAN DO IN THE WORLD?
The Woman imspires and preserves the Man—Woman's PosL
tion in the Early Christian Ages—Learned Women in the
CONTENTS.
13
Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Centuries—Learned Women in the
Seventh and Eighth Centuries—Examples from the Ninth
and Tenth Centuries—Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Cen-
turies—Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries—The Sixteenth
Century—The Seventeenth Century—The Eighteenth Cen-
tury—History proves Woman'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 Apitudes—Professions should be
studied by Opulent Women—The Wife should keep pace
with the Husband—Eights of Women to Fair Competition-
Occupations peculiarly adapted to Women—Women as Phy-
sicians—Why Women]are naturally adapted to Medical Prac-
tice—Successes of Women in Literature—Origin of Female
Teachers —The Establishment of Ursulines—Foundation of
"Ursulines" at Clermont and Dijon—Anecdote of Francoise
de Saintonge—Women as Professors—Reach the Intellect
through the Heart—Effects 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 Teaching already hinted
by a Woman—Sound Advice from a Woman—Another
Extract from the same Source—Drawing and Painting
taught by a Woman—A Woman pleads for her Art—Letter
to the Author from a woman—Teachers of Oratory and
Elocution—Dentists—Lecturers, Editors, Librarians, Sculp-
tors —Actresses — Ministers—Public Officers —Women in
Convents—Public Offices for which Women are better
adapted than Men—Letter to the French Convention—Con-
fer Rights but Impose Duties—How to make Patriots—
Argument of Condorcet—Experience vs. Abstract Bight—
14
CONTENTS.
Quotations from Montalembert—Examples of Female Rulers
—Examples of Women as Statesmen and Politicians—Politi-
cal Stump-Orators—Female Political Clubs in France-
Women of the French Revolution—Experiment of "Woman's
Rights" in France—Woman's Incapacity for Statesmanship. Pages 301-373
X.
PROSTITUTION.
Prevalence of the Evil—Only Christian Charity can deal with
it—No Official Recognition „ Pages 372-373
XL
HAPPINESS IN WEDLOCK.
Application of Previous Studies—Object of Love—Domestic
Happiness in its Largest Seose—Shall" Courtship " continue
in marriage?—Narrative from Balzac—Conjugal Politics—
Science of Fig-leaves—Pernicious Education vs. Conjugal
Happiness—Courting vs. Hygiene—The Idea of Ownership
in relation to Dishonor—" 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 Pages 374403.
CONJUGAL APHORISMS Pages 404-407.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
,6-14
APOLOGIA.
SOME years ago, on the floor of the Senate-
Chamber, a United States Senator 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 expose so boldly proclaimed; 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 Senator's speeches encour-
aged him to persevere, 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, and indicate the remedies
for the existing evils; and, while appalled at the
responsibility, and shrinking from the task, we were
nevertheless impelled by convictions of duty too
imperious to be resisted.
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16
SATAN Jfi SOCIETY.
Encouragement to the Author.
In the meantime a work was announced, by a
noted physician, 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 anything which can offer the hope of enlighten-
ment upon subjects concerning which they are tired
'of their long-enforced ignorance. It enabled us to
add to the desire of being useful the certainty of
having readers.
The work above referred to afforded us encourage-
ment, 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 apart of our
subject which we would gladly omit did not constant
experience admonish us to speak of it in no uncer-
tain tone." And again: "Mothers are too often
unwilling to entertain for a moment the thought
that their daughters are addicted to such a vice,
when it is only too plain to the physician." But,
like every other ungracious truth which he is forced
APOLOGIA.
17
Becent Authors on Female Onanism.
to handle, the doctor's good nature or complaisance
leads him to qualify the rudeness of his utterance
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:
"Mothers generally delude themselves upon the
pretended ignorance of their girls, yet it is our pain-
ful 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 pieces
justificaMves. Those who may regard our state-
ments in relation to male and female self-abuse as
overdrawn are earnestly requested to procure the
work of M. Tissot, entitled Traite de V 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 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.
* A sweeping assertion, which we by no means indorse.
18
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Human Pride Leads to Destruction.
The one creates, 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 imperfec-
tions. In the glittering generalities 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 religion, 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 catastrophe
of Babel. It is portrayed even in mythology as
Phaeton driving the chariot of the sun, the war of the
Titans upon the gods of Olympus, the flight of Ica-
rus, etc. So these insane "reformers," with whom
APOLOGIA.
19
True Progress Only Attained Through Christianity.
each century is plagued, sink into the waves of ob-
livion " unwept, unhonored and unsung."
We believe in progress—none more firmly—but
we believe only in-that progress which is accom-
plished under the influence of religion, of Christ-
ianity. 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 as in 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 anything new; that, however novel and how-
ever well expressed one may suppose his conceptions
to be, he will always find, on extending his reading,
that some one has said the same thing before him,
and has said it much better. Whoever would real-
ize the full force of this, let him write a booh
20
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
, "Nothing New Under the Sun."
For example, we supposed that our remarks in
relation 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
encountered precisely similar thoughts, and in works,
too, expressly designed for the public eye. Thus
M. Legouve, 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 happiness of a life-time! What impres-
sion, 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 husbands, thence-
forth, for them, objects of repulsion." And of the
consequent dangers to chastity when the 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
APOLOGIA.
21
Popular Authors on the Wedding Night.
words, beholds transports of joy and tears of grati-
tude for a flower 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 Meditations em-
brace 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 perceives the uselessness of her sacrifices." "If
there is any thing astonishing it is that the deplor-
able absurdities which our customs have accumulated
about the nuptial bed have occasioned so few hatreds!"
He "meditates" also upon the "secret laws in rela-
tion 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 consummation of marriage but a
legalized rape?
Dr. — says: "It sometimes happens that
marriage is consummated with difficulty. To over-
come this, care, management, and forbearance should
22
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Patent Contrivances to Prevent Conception.
always be employed, and any thing like precipitation
and violence avoided. Only the consequences of
unrestrained impetuosity are to be feared." As
usual, the Doctor spoils the whole by this last sen-
tence. It should be remembered, however, that he
alludes solely to physical dangers, 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 pub-
licity, 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
conception, Dr. says: "Were they familiar
to intelligent physicians, yet with a wise discrimin-
ation and a conscientious regard for morality, they
could not reveal them except ivhere they ioere con,
vinced that they would not be abused." Alas! can
not a writer like Dr. state one fact in
positive terms? Must this eternal loop-hole of
escape be left for every criminal? Will the Doc-
tor, in his next edition, instance one solitary
case in the whole range of his imagination, not
to say his experience, where the employment of
APOLOGIA.
23
Physicians Cannot Approve Them.
any artificial 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 inven-
tion, but by what method? Simply by address-
ing the thing to physicians. Is it to be sup-
posed that he would incure the great expense and
trouble of sending these circulars to several thousand
physicians if he could not safely calculate upon the
patronage of many among them? This fact proves
that there are worse villains than the druggist, than
the criminal wives and husbands. They are these
middle men, these pimps of Satan, these physicians
who, in the words of Dr. "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 physician we find
such widely spread looseness of morals on this
subject in particular, 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 seriousness: "Must
a woman bear children, despite all considerations oi
24
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Two Wrongs do not Make Od6 Right.
health or prudence?" '4 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 com-
manding 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 certain circumstances." The Christ-
ian religion teaches this woman that one sin must
never be avoided by committing another! But such
objections are all swept aside by the simple state-
ment: 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
who, when the necessity exists, is unwilling to come
under this mild restriction is a beast who should be
resisted at all hazards.
* As we have stated in the text, for about forty-eight hours before the re-ap-
pearance of the monthly flow it is remotely possible for conception to occnr.
This is thought to depend upon the circumstance that the fecundating fluid
may remain 11 animated" in the vagina during that time.
APOLOGIA.
25
A Noted Physician on Infanticide.
In our references' to the work by a "noted physi-
cian" we have not intended to detract from the real
merits of the book, nor to charge the author 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. Here, 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 conception 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 strangled her new-born infant,
or as if she snatched from her own breast her six-
months' darling, and dashed out its brains against
26
SATAN IN SOCIETY,
So-Called "Criminal Abortion."
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 com-
mon. 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 gener-
ally unmarried 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 childbirth, 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
implies "justifiable abortion." If the language of the
Doctor be true, there can be no intentional abortion
which is justifiable! It follows logically from the
statement: "From the moment of conception a new
APOLOGIA.
27
Boarding Schools. National Courtships.
life commences," that he who takes that life, whether
under the forms of medical or civil law, or the sti-
mulus 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
relation to boarding schools. But our duty was imper-
ative to speak of them as they "deserve, and they
deserve no 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.
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,
28
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
A Learned Frenchman's View of Us.
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 thir-
teen she understands passion and its object; she is
scarcely nubile ere she makes it an habitual text of
conversation with her companions, and seeks to pro-
fit 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
receive 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 iU-a-iete or
even by a rupture. Another succeeds him, and finds
himself ousted in his turn if he is not more respect-
ful, or at least more skillful.
"Such is the theory of that moral onanism called
APOLOGIA.
29
Flirtation is Moral Onanism.
'flirtation.' 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 American 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 wan-
der with him in vast solitudes without danger to her
organic virginity. But who will tell me what is left
in the soul by ardors repressed or deviated by in-
complete 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 enkin-
dled? For one American woman who, after having
'flirted' several years, really loves and marries lier
lover, there are ten who at twenty years have broken
the springs of tenderness, contract marriages of
money, and end by giving themselves without experi-
encing the joys of a veritable love. The habit of
coquetry, besides the moral defloration, imparts
something arrogant and domineering to the charac-
ter 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
30
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Whence the Kuderiess of American Public Manners.
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 marry-
ing she takes a man of business whose whole time is
employed in speculations or in labors to provide for
the menage, but who leaves her sole mistress of the
household, in which he assumes no authority.
"The practical spirit of the Americans felicitates
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 o
as it is clever. They congratulate themselves on
having nothing to do with the direction of the
household; 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 esteem and respect;
to invest her with a superiority which is superfluo as
APOLOGIA.
31
Weakness of Family Ties and Fraternal Love.
from lack of application. From this results a rude-
ness in public manners which too often borders on
brutality. Where shall the American acquire those
habits of elegance, gallantry, and delicacy of feeling
which are never derived save from contact with
women? From 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 ha ye 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 tenderness; if the menage 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 generally adopted in the United States
and in England, leaves much to be desired. It
weakens paternal authority, relaxes the ties of the
family, and the children of the same father rarely
love each other. Sons take leave of their parents,
brothers, and sisters without tears. They undertake
32
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Fortifying Influence of Modesty.
long journeys and expeditions of years' duration as
though their absence was 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 coquetry nor in ephe-
meral sentiments, as is justly charged upon the girls
of England and North America. It is far better that
the instincts combated by great physical and mental
activity, should be restrained by that flower of chastity
which in woman is allied to self-respect and high-
spiritedness. Nothing is so charming as those
organizations which blush at their own nudity, al-
though 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 defile-
ment; 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 excel-
lent preservative against the influence of the senses,
and even against the attempts of seduction.
* Every one can recaU 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 imbrnted
wretches awed to respect by the modest chastity of her demeanor, and
changed to devotion by the sweet piety of her evening prayer.
APOLOGIA.
33
"Desire" vs. Purity. Picture Drawn by Rev. A. D. Mayo.
44 Desire is really dangerous only when it brings
voluptuous pictures incessantly before the imagin-
ation. It thus holds a thousand contests with
virtue which it conquers in the end; it installs itself
in the bosom of the intelligence of which it becomes
the habitual pre-occupation; it imparts a deplorable
sagacity in the discovery of that general law of
love which rules the world. Then the theatre 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 con-
fidence of a young married woman.
44 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
temptations of the seducer. On the other hand,
if the imagination remains pure, desire is merely
an indeterminate uneasiness, merely a sorrow cap-
able of irritating the nerves, of causing sleeplessness,
or, at most, a few tears."
Not more flattering is the following picture drawn,
by a native artist, Eev. A. D. Mayo:
44 The crowd of American girls do what women
would do everywhere, neglect the higher culture of
the soul in scheming or waiting for the sensual
34
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Secret Cause of Fearful Collapse of Female Health.
advantages of life, and spend the first quarter of a
century rather in superficial occupations and inquir-
ing after desirable husbands than in toiling to
become good wives and republican mothers.
"This fearful push for the material prizes of our
national life, explains the imperfect education of
American young women. Mothers and daughters
vie in the cultivation of those temporary graces and
* accomplishments 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 post-
poned 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 watch-
ing a chance to leap on board a fairy's floating
palace that wavers over a stormy sea, is not a
healthy, though an exciting occupation. 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 house-
hold duties under their teachers or mothers. This
rush of energy to the surface of life, the excitement,K
hopes and fears of a young lady's career, leave the
deep places of the heart dry, and create a morbid
APOLOGIA.
35
To Heed Our Instructions the Only Route to Happiness.
restlessness of the affections that plays 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 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 defined; 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
36
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
.1!
For Whom We Have Written.
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 our
instructions is their only route to happiness—to
their continued enjoyment of even carnal pleasures.
What greater service could we hope to render our
fellow-creatures than to declare to them the revela-
tions of science in language deprived of ambiguity
and cleared of the mists of technology.
Little matters it to us that we shall doubtless ob-
tain 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 libidi-
nous curiosity, will be disappointed, but, better still,
they will be scared! Their terror will prove emi-
nently salutary, for, in describing the evils of sexual
excesses and unnatural practices, we point with the
finger of authority which they dare not despise, at
the deplorable consequences involved—consequences
which none may escape. Indeed, in the whole range
of practical medicine, there is nothing 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
written for school-girls! But suppose that by some
APOLOGIA.
37
A Plea for Fair Criticism.
chance many such should embrace stolen opportuni-
ties 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 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 "in-
discretion."
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
demolishing our forces in detail. Our chapter en-
titled u Psycho-Physiological Comparison of the
Sexes" must be estimated as a whole, and not from
detached sentences. 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," without our more than counterbalancing
admission regarding 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.
38
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Growth of Our Work as it Progresses.
Our principal design, when we commenced the
making 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. 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 conduct of
men, we have appealed to the fashionable idol, rea-
son, 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 that were unexpected, and
which could not be evaded, by reason of their inti-
mate relation to our subject. In grouping the mate-
rials for our task our horizon was widely expanded,
and we beheld not only medicine, but political econ-
omy, public morals, and even dogmatic theology, all
more or less intimately concerned in our labors.
When compelled to touch upon the latter, however,
we have endeavored to. respect the religious tenets
APOLOGIA.
3»
Abominable Current Literature.
of all who profess Christianity; but we have exhib-
ited 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 lamentable consequences upon our
social and political status. We have shown the dan-
gers of intermarriage between blood relations, and
have sought to awaken public attention to the fatal
consequences of the marriage 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 emanations of the false philosophy of the day.
40
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
0
Promiscuity of the Sexes in Our Schools.
along with free-thinking, free-loving, et hoc genus
omne. "Smartness," "cuteness," pertness, bold-
ness, and masculinity enter largely into the educa-
tion of our u young ladies" under the present system.
We have written for "all sorts and conditions of
men," and have, therefore, been compelled to speak
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: 44If 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
readily pardon us for the expressions which necessity
has forced us to employ." Nature veneranda est,
non erubescenda.
The question whether these topics should be dis-
cussed at all 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
APOLOGIA.
41
Should These Topics be Discussed.
in the journals devoted to "Woman's Eights," these
delicate subjects are constantly being handled, and
in a manner which educates the people, and
> ""ucates them falsely. The translation of M.
jjlichelet's V Amour^ a false, sentimental, and
pernicious work, has attained, in the United States
alone, the enormous circulation of over two hundred
thousand!
And now comes (we will not give the title) a period-
ical 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 uthe current
views of the Christian churches upon questions of
faith," while six of them advocate the abolition of mar- #
riage! An article on "Scientific Propagation" contains
the following damnable language: "For instance,
polygamy, so far as the fact of obtaining and support-
ing many wives implies that a man is superior to his
fellows, 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 propa-
gation, and, so far as the interest of masters leads to
selection like that practiced in animal breeding, it leads
42
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
"Stirpiculture" Openly Advocated.
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 * *c
without compensations in the light of the pre
gative 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, actually 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 generations.
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 advooate, deliberately and scientifically, what it
terms * stirpiculture," or "breeding from the best,"
in or out of lawful wedlock!
APOLOGIA. 43
k
The Discussion Forced Upon Ue.
Another article, entitled, "The Love-Life of
August Comte," from the pen, alas! of a woman,
pictures his friend, Olotilde de Vaux, as "the repre-
sentative of the noblest attributes of humanity,"
and as bearing the same relation to his reli^on and
its believers as "Laura to Petrarch, as Beatrice to
Dante, as Heloise to Abelard, 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 "decidedly 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 anti-christian 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
altgether 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
She wall with which the ages have guarded these
44
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Our Hop6s and Aims.
mysteries, we enter fearlessly in the breach in our
capacity of surgeon, a mission altogether peaceful;
and, as there is no inconvenience without its com-
pensating advantage, so it has seemed to us that the
ruthless invasion of the sanctity of private life now
become the fashion, may be utilized by the educa-
tion 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 conse-
quence, 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 writ-
ten in vain. That it may do this for many thousands
is our sincere hope and prayer.
We do not affect to have said everything on the
subjects we have treated, but only to have said truly.
When #e have entered the domain of Science we
have proceeded by her light and with her docu-
ments: when we have spoken from our own obser-
vation we have "painted from Nature." We have
APOLOGIA.
45
Authors From Whom We Have Drawn.
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 be ready to make personal applications.
We beg to assure them that save in a few instances
where circumstantial illustrations 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 from
certain foreign authors for our materiel. Especially
in the chapters entitled "Woman without Christ-
ianity," and "Psycho-Physiological Comparison of
the Sexes," we have consulted, and here and there
freely translated from the profound works of Belou-
ino, Legouve, Mayer, the monk Debreyne, Eauland,
and others acknowledged in the text. Our aim has
been less to present something 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.*
* 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 202.
46
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Let Our Object Plead for Us.
The experience of which this book is the offspring
has banished many illusions, many beautif ul 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 bubbles! We have read somewhere—in the French
of Madame ICmile 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 einbodL
ment of long and arduous study, observation, and
experience, in the hope of contributing somewhat to
the cause of civilization. May the grandeur of our
object plead in extenuation of the imperfect mannei
in which we have attempted its accomplishment!
4;
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
I.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF BOYS AND
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 obscure to even the very best thinkers of our
time. Irreligion and infidelity are progressing pari
passu with the advance guards of immorality and
crime, and all are fostered, if not engendered, by the
materialistic system of school instruction, and the
consequent wretched training at home and on the
play-ground. The entire absence of all religious
instruction from the schoolroom, which has resulted
from the utter impossibility of harmonizing the mul-
tiform creeds, and the growing fallacy of "refraining
from prejudicing the minds of our children in favor of
YOUNG MEN.

(47)
48
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Generation of Infidels. Number and Character of Habitual Church-goers.
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 relig-
ion, 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 pub-
lished 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 disintegration 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
restraints of religious influence from our popular
system of education; we have the promiscuous inter-
mingling of the sexes in our public schools, which,
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
49
Promiscuous Public Schools. Dangerous Elements in Human Nature.
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 aegis 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,
retarded and directed. This mysterious instinct
develops 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 and well-nigh ungovernable in
those who have been allowed these unfortunate
occasions. The boy of the present generation has
more practical knowledge of this instinct at the age
of fifteen than, under proper training, he should be
entitled to at the time of his marriage; and the boy
of eleven or twelve boastfully announces to his com-
panions the evidences of his approaching virility.
Nourished by languishing glances during the hours
passed in the schoolroom, fanned by more intimate
50
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Stimulants to the Sexual Instinct. Onanists and Roues.
association on the journey to and from school, fed
by stolen interviews and openly arranged festivities,
stimulated by the prurient gossip of the newspaper
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
witness. Bevelations are rare; instances of detec-
tion 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 roues among boys outnumber the onanists
by thousands, and that, destructive and revolting as
is the latter vice, it is even more tolerable to con-
template 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 pupils; 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
attendance in any school thus vised. Onanism,
though called the solitary vice, is essentially gre-
garious in its origin.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
51
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
allusion to the subject, while in their hearts they must
realize 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 proteges. Thus
it happens that a boy contracts a habit, which, dis-
covered too late, is well-nigh unconquerable in its
thralldom, as it is formidable in its sad results, and
which a few earnest, timely words would have surely
prevented.
Why charge then that the present system of edu-
cation, by its faults of omission and commission, is
directly responsible, not, it is true, for the bare exist-
ence, 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 arrange-
ments of our schools, and upon parents and guard-
ians to so instruct and govern their charges, that the
evils may be suppressed, if not extinguished. By the
former this may be measurably effected in isolation
52
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Where many boys receive their first lessons in Crime.
of the sexes; by the latter, in encouraging the con-
fidence and preparing the minds of boys for the great
physiological crisis and its consequent dangers, whose
advent they can easily and surely discern. In many
instances the requisite instruction and counsel maybe
best imparted by the family physician, 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 pos-
sessed 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 whenever a safe opportunity presents
itself, and thus children of six and twelve fall victims
to those of twelve and,eighteen.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
53
Boys and Girls Sleeping in the same Room or Bed.
The custom of permitting children of different
sexes to sleep in the same bed, or in the same room,
is surprisingly 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 results, if nothing more comes
of it than an undue familiarity with the differences
of organization. It is astonishing 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 tto
sufficient explanation of its impropriety. 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
the parent, "Evil to him that evil thinks." It is a
truth, proven by the experience of ages, that sepa-
ration 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. Concu-
piscence, though the strongest and most injurious,
is far from being the only passion needlessly and
wrongfully developed in boys; those of cupidity,
54
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Concupiscence not the only Passion Developed.
extravagance, dishonesty, and faithfulness are not-
able. "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 neglect-
ful parents; and the secret of this truism is pre-
cisely 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 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 verac-
ity 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.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
55
Remedy for Falsehood. Novel, yet Efficient.
Innumerable remonstrances, whippings, and priva-
tions were vainly tried upon the little reprobate,
until a plaster covering the mouth, and duly per-
forated 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 required to accomplish a
radical cure in either case, but, nevertheless, it can
and should be done. Many an avaricious monster
may thank his doting parents for the qualities which
render him odious, and which were ineradically
fixed upon him in childhood by encouragement of
his miscalled "cuteness," while the ruined spend-
thrift may live to erase the "fond paternal ass" for
his undue indulgence of mere childish lavishness.
Not long since we were quietly examining a little
patient, who, not relishing the process, struck us in
the face. The mother took the matter as an excel-
lent joke; not so the author, who indulged in the
unpleasant reflection that the germ of a possible
56
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Belligerent Patient. Distorted Virtues.
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 babies: they
are terrible 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 excel-
lence. Positive qualities are of slow growth, and,
whether good or evil, they invariably date back to
the nursery. Crime, then, may be restricted 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, con-
flicting prejudices and interests, but in closing this
chapter he feels it would be incomplete without a
protest against boarding-schools. The best that can
be said of them is that they are necessary evils. As
generally conducted ihey 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" character of the school,
the reputation of the distinguished minister who
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
57
Boarding-School8. History of "One of the Beet."
governed it, no less than the estimable character 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 ward-
robe to escape the assaults and jeers of his compan-
ions 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 revelations which fairly make
one shudder to contemplate. We are not prepos-
sessed, so far as our experience entitles us to
judge, with the cheerful or salubrious character
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
boarding-school in question. The fact is that nearly
every boarding school is an omnium 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 asso-
ciate with the common herd, while the few gentle
spirits, whom unfortunate circumstances, as orphan-
58
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Sins of the Eye and Imagination. Popular Sophism.
age 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 refuse admission hor to
make other than feeble and superficial efforts to
reform the young scapegraces placed in his cage.
We readily concede that a good boarding-school is
preferable to a bad home, but a "good boarding-
school" is well nigh a contradiction in terms, a vara
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 adultery
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: "lean
not prevent the desire; the desire is as bad as the act;
therefore I can be no worse off if I commit the act!"
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 actually committed? that bad guests may
come, but they must not be entertained? If there
SATAN IN SOCIETT.
59
Home Piety, and less interest in "Borioboola Gha."
were more home piety deserving the name, and less
interest in "Borioboola Gha," it were better for both
religion and morality.
It will be readily perceived, from what has been
already said, that the transition of Young America
from boy to man is too brief to be separately con-
sidered. The habits acquired at school are perfected
in the university 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 lib-
ertines now crowding our land.
60
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Mission of Education in its largest Sense.
II.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF GIRLS AND
YOUNG WOMEN.
C DU0ATION, considered in its largest sense, has
'the mission of rendering the youth of both
sexes beautiful, 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 connection, to analyze
somewhat philosophically, the errors in practice
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
61
Mens sana in corpore sano. The Desideratum,
which have conduced to these disasters. It is con-
ceded 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
cannot 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. Kousseau 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 lowest classes in
civilized communities, the feeble or imperfect die
before reproducing themselves, so the race is perpetu-
ated only by the strong and healthy; but with civilized
nations, science preserves the existence of debilitated
creatures, who marry and reproduce their similars.
The art of medicine, while it has succeeded in the
62
SA.TAN IN SOCIETY.
Hereditary Vice in Constitution. s Who need a Physician.
task of preserving the existence of such beings, has
altogether failed in that still more noble duty, clearly
within its province, of bringing the feeble to the con-
dition of the strong; in other words, of eradicating
heriditary vices of constitution. The child who
inherits the consumption of his father, surrounded by
dangers which menace the lungs, is placed in con-
ditions of temperature, air and exercise which are
most directly calculated to develop his inherent mal-
ady. The son of the madman, in the place of enforced
idolence, is daily crowded with excessive study. He
who inherits intestinal disease, is delivered to a
government of chance or caprice. Neither tempera-
ment, constitution, weakness, nor diseased proclivities
of children are in any way studied or considered,
either in families, or in public and private establish-
ments. 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
63
Means of Prevention. Remedy of Natural Defects.
«.
despised, for those who are apparently well. When
people learn to avail themselves of the means of pre-
vention afforded by the medical art, then we may
hope to see the race of pigmies give place to a gen-
eration of giants. Based upon an exact knowledge
of the constitution of the parents; and foreseeing the
dangers which will menace the child, proper physi-
cal education will indicate, in due time, the surest
means of avoiding them. The varied nutrition, the
charges of air, and water, and places, which our
wonderful system of railroad put at our disposal;
the varied and skillful systems 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 com-
fort, as well as a wonderful prolongation of life,
may be secured, and that, in a few generations,
these taints may be eradicated, and the race vastly
improved.
With few exceptions, we are not born with the dis-
64
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Sunshine and Air carefully excluded.
eases with which our parents are afflicted, but only
with a tendency to those diseases. These usually de-
clare themselves at about the age at which our
parents were first attacked. This affords time and
ample warning to pursue such a judicious system of
physical and mental training as shall almost cer-
tainly prevent them. For example: a child whose
father died of consumption at the age of thirty-five,
knows that whatever may be his physical conforma-
tion, 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 especi-
ally, condemned to inaction, excluded from light and
air in the paternal mansion, carefully secluded from
both through tender regard, if not for the fine furni-
ture, at least for the complexion and clothing of the
SATAN IN SOOIETX.
65
Physical Improvement of the Mothers Demanded.
poor creatures who are thus made to violate the most
obvious dictates of nature. Entire days are passed
without 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 everything were expressly devised
to weaken the body and to enervate the moral senses.
Pupils are constrained to breathe the vitiated atmos-
phere 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 suc-
cumb. In most of these establishments the pro-
visions 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 im-
provement 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 in city life, whether in fashionable or semi-
fashionable circles, are truly objects of commis-
eration. In this fast age the very methods most cal-
66
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Maidenly Freshness and Innocence becoming a Myth.
culated to force a premature womanhood, are those
universally adopted, and both at home and at school
the poor girl sees and hears so much that is posi-
tively poisonous that our only wonder should be, not
that our women are proverbially sickly and delicate,
but that we have any women at all deserving 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 examples, 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 their legitimate con-
sequences in the prevalence of evils so universally
deplored. In behalf of girls, even more strongly
than of boys, the author would plead for early isola-
tion of the sexes—not that complete separation which
would exclude children of the same family from
innocent and legitimate participation in childish
sports and pleasures, but isolation in sleeping, and
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
67
Early Isolation of the Sexes. Love of Dress in Girls.
dressing, and all those little matters which expose
the differences of conformation, and are capable of
suggesting ideas of curiosity or comparison. With
the opulent there is no sort of difficulty 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 appreciation
of its necessity and binding obligation. This kind
of isolation should begin as early as $he 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 detected, 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 abund-
antly prove the correctness 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. What-
ever pride may actuate a mother to decorate her
little daughters with the flummery of fashion, should
68
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
A New and Horrible Bivalry. Children's Parties.
be carefully explained to them as the requirement
of neatness and propriety. Surely, a little harmless
equivocation here was necessary for those 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 com-
mon occurrence to hold these entertainments for
little children, at which the extravagance and dissi-
pation 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 differs from others only in the
size of the dramatis personce. The newspapers
pander to the unnatural performance, and the superb
toilets of the misses and exquisite make-up of the
masters are elaborately blazoned in the column of
"Fashionable Gossip." Children from eight to
thirteen are thus initiated in* the mysteries of dissi-
pation, 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,"
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
69
Boarding-Schools dangerous to the Physical and Moral Natures.
The wrongful commingling of sexes in the public
schools has been already commented on, and little
need 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 public schools improve the former,
but degrade the latter. uO, 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 board-
ing 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
70
SATAN IN SOGIETY.
Influence of Mnsic, Dancing, etc.
of nerves and sensibility, the most impressionable
and sensitive being of living nature, is thus early
placed in the very conditions most calculated to
enervate and destroy her. All medical authorities
agree that nothing is more calculated to exalt sensi-
bility, to sensualize the heart, and expose the
nervous system to the most fatal perturbations than
a luxurious and voluptuous education. The reading
of novels, the pleasures of the senses, the frequent-
ing 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 accidents which are the sad portion of
women of the opulent 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 bril-
liant his genius, and that, in science, there is no
difference of opinion whatever on this topic. The
remedy is less obvious. He would be rash indeed,
who would enter a crusade against the dominion of
8ATAN IN SOCIETY.
71
In the Abase of Good Things, Evil Generally Consists.
c
fashion so far as to prohibit the cultivation of those
arts which are really innocent, and even ennobling,
in themselves, and which lead only indirectly to per-
nicious 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 requir-
ing 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 excite-
ment, be scrupulously prevented until the great
physiological change from girl to woman has been
accomplished. We are satisfied that it is less thef
polite arts themselves than the occasions to which-
they lead, which impart to them their dangerous
character. Surely, that sublime language, "the con-
cord of sweet sounds," which, we are taught, is. the
very highest form of adoration and love, to which
even the hosts of Heaven are attuned, 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
72
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
No intermediate Stage between Childhood and Adult Age.
%
every young person, prohibited as positively as
strychnine or arsenic; not even allowed as subjects
of discussion or argument. There are those who
will read these pages who, with an inconsistent
prudery—or hypocrisy (?)—impossible to believe,
will deem our work imprudently plain, and who yet
do not scruple to place in the hands of their daugh-
ters the journals of the day, albeit teaming with
advertisements and "news items" of the most revolt-
ing and indecent character.
Young America in petticoats, as in trowsers, mani-
fests no intermediate stage of existence between
childhood and adult age. If she do not marry from
the schoolroom, she is at least "engaged." The
exceptions are those who do not secure eligible
"lovers," or those who are too unattractive to find
any. An "engagement," in these modern times, is,
however, rather a genteel method of legalizing
improper relations with some favored one of the
opposite sex, than a veritable 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
73
Privileges of acknowledged Lovers.
the purpose of securing the necessary supplies than
for the purpose of seriously submitting the question
of approval. Too often a girl is engaged to be
married many times 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 ladies and gentlemen
to hold possession of the drawing-room night after
night, to the banishment of their natural guardians,
who are too indolent or too careless to discharge
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 reasonably expect if the marriage ceremony
had actually transpired. Except a private bed-room,
they are as secluded whenever they may choose to
be so, as any married couple could wish. With
closely drawn curtains, and with doors either locked
or sacred from intrusion, they pass the "wee sma'
hours ayont the twaP" in learning the details of
passion, and too often its entire mysteries, to the
detriment of their physical, and the utter ruin of
their moral health.
74
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Pictorial Illustration. American Courtship.
Only a short time since there appeared in one of
our principal pictorial weeklies, a beautifully execu-
ted design representing two lovers unwilling to say
good-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 eleven, 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 truthful
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
the lady's hair and dress were too smooth. and
unruffled for the hour and the occasion. "O, times!
O, manners!" Beally, our American courtships are
but little better than "bundlings." Under all these
circumstances it is not surprising that a broken
engagement should seriously 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 freely lavished on
another. The author knows of young ladies, very
pretty and attractive girls, who shine as belles in
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
75
Warm Appeal to the Young Women of America.
society year after year, who are unable to obtain
husbands wholly from the circumstance that they
are too well known to the young men as girls by
whom the most daring freedoms have been not only
unrebuked, but encouraged. Long drives and walks
in solitary pairs, unchaperoned at balls and parties,
even the sacred edifice polluted by flirtations scan-
dalous to behold—of what are the f athersand mothers
of America thinking, 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 unas-
serted or unheeded, do not restrain them, let them
listen to instruction from one who knows thoroughly
the weakness of women and the perfidy of men.
Young women of America, if you knew how lightly
you are estimated by those who so earnestly and
passionately seek your favors, you would certainly
deny them, if the effort cost your lives. There are
degrees in libertinism: the affectionate caress, the
wanton impropriety, the deliberate seduction; and,
however humiliating the assertion may be, it is never-
theless 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
76 SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Wherein the Danger Lies.
demonstrate the truth of this. "If a woman hesi-
tates, she is lost;" "Cest le premier pas qui
coutej" and this sentiment is multiplied into all
languages, held by all nations. Such is the
universal sentiment of mankind, and all history
shows that the more innocent a girl may be at
heart, the more sure is she to fall if she sur-
render the advance guards of her honor. The phil-
osophy 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, undeveloped it may be, but the spark is
there, and if once developed, it is uncontrollable in
direct proportion to the strength of love and con-
fidence. The thought that you are deliberately sur-
rendering 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
pleasures which seem pure and innocent in them-
selves, but which alas ! are the poisoned arrows which
destroy the very power of resistance. In point of
SATAN IN SOOIETX.
77
Matrimony the End and Aim of Existence.
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
^)een tasted. The Biblical instructions on this subject
are literal truth, be sure of it, and no sophistry can
change the obvious meaning of Divine revelation.
Eemember that you have actually committed the
sins which you have willfully entertained, desired,
and cherished in your hearts. Eepent of them in
secret humiliation and sin no more. Obsta
principiis (resist the beginnings).
The girls of our country are trained and educated
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 await-
ing her who piously resolves upon perpetual chastity.
Our modern Christianity, alas! has no honorable
niche for "old maids." They are the Pariahs of
78
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Latest Modern Invention. Woman's Rights.
society, at least in the estimation of young girls and
married women. "O, 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 virgin, and singing the celestial canticles that
none others may dare to sing; fortunate if you be-
hold her not as Dives beheld Lazarus.
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 con-
ducting 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 "Woman's Eights." Set in
motion by a singular class of advocates, it would
almost seem to have become epidemic. As though
dissatisfied with the irksome lullaby and the weari-
some routine of household duties, hosts have joined
the invading forces, and now their conventions,
their speeches, their special organs, and their
sophistical catch-words have assumed so great pro-
portions that they really seem on the verge of
securing political prominence.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
79
Her "Rights" will prove a most prolific Source of her Wrongs.
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 it has seized upon this bauble of "Wom-
an's Eights," and bids fair to dignify it into a terrible
engine of destruction. Let us examine what it will do
for our daughters in its present aspect, and what if
carried to successful operations. The mere dis-
cussion of such a revolution as a possibility, the
bare toleration of the idea, is sufficient in itself - to
injure the mind and to operate powerfully upon the
imagination of these impressionable creatures—to
excite in them feelings of indignation and dissatis-
faction with their present condition. Every argu-
ment that ingenuity can suggest, is brought to bear
in assuring them that they are deprived of certain
inherent44rights'* 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 carried
out in actual practice, this matter of "Woman's
Rights *' will speedily eventuate in the most prolific
80
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Men not Reformed, but Women Debased by the Ballot.
source of lier wrongs. She will become rapidly
unsexed, and degraded from her present exalted
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 see how any single abuse
could be reformed, it is easy to imagine how very
many would be created by the " political enfranchise-
ment and eligibility of woman.'" It would most
assuredly introduce a new and alarming element of
discord into the family circle, already weakened,
well-nigh ruined, by the singular customs of the time.
The tendency to isolation has been ably com-
mented on by a recent writer as the greatest danger
to American society; the living in hotels and board-
ing-houses, and the "loss of the restraining and
purifying associations 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 obtaining divorces is fast break-
ing down even this last hope. The same writer
truly says, that "when the family goes, the nation
goes too, or ceases to be worth preserving."
We can not imagine how men can be reformed by
investing women with the ballot, but we can readily
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
81
Laxity and Negligence of Home Duties.
believe that many women would thereby become
debased. 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 will be forgotten, and she will
lose that respect and deference with which she has
hitherto been so generously 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 question" 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 increasr
ing this laxity and neglect? If what we have said
of domestic training be true, it will be seen how nec-
essary it is to render mothers more faithful and
vigilant, instead of weakening their interest and
82
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Women's Rights, Babies' Wrongs. Case Supposed.
obligation to become so. Observe the families of
women who devote almost their entire time and atten-
tion to even meritorious and essentially feminine, but
outside works—how neglected and proverbially wild
and ungovernable are the children. Every one says
of such a woman: "She does 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 to
follow schemes of ambition or of pleasure? They
are justly regarded as monstrosities. Extend the
suffrage to woman, throw her into the political arena,
set her squabbling and scheming for office, and you
multiply indefinitely the number of monstrosities.
The evils of child-murder, of unnatural repugnance
to offspring, will, for obvious reasons, be prodigi-
ously increased; so the attainment of women's rights
will prove the establishment of babies' wrongs.
Suppose a case: Mrs. Le Baron is elected to a
lucrative and honorable office. She finds, to her
infinite 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?
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
83
Spiritual Children of "Old Maids."
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 fail of this destiny, there are the poor and mother-
less, the forsaken and the down-trodden, the sinful,
and the sorrowful, and the suffering—behold her
charge! Behold the spiritual children of 4'old
maids!"
Eeforms are needed—none can be more sensible
of this fact than we—and the remedy can be applied
by woman; 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 asperities, 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 exquisite beauty, grace, and love-
liness the character of her daughters—to implant in
all her children that piety, and filial love, and obedi-
ence which are the surest guarantees of respect for
civil law and authority.
84
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
"Be that you are."
"Be that you are." 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 are—that is, a
woman; if you be more, you're none,"
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
85
The most Frequent, as well as the most Fatal, of all Vices.
111.
MALE SELF ABUSE.
\ /TEWING the world over, this shameful and
* criminal act is the most frequent, as well as
the most fatal, of all vices. 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 itself, it is only the most
aggravated cases that are brought to the notice of the
physician, and these usually are hopeless and incur-
86
SATAN IN SOCIETY*
Masturbation in Childhood, before the Age of Pnberty.
able. 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 persistent 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
acquiring 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
and fatal passion. This explains the great number
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
87
Method Adopted by "Wi6e Women."
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 physio-
logical end. It is obvious that, in such a condi-
tion of abnormal excitation, the least accidental
touch, or even an involuntary or mechanical move-
ment, 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 pas-
sionate 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
attention on this subject of infantile masturbation,
88
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Priapism in a Child of Four Years.
though there are probably few physicians of experi-
ence 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 eleven.
Deslandes, in his work on onanism, speaks of a con-
firmed masturbator 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.
"A young man from Montpelier" (we translate
from Tissot), "a student of medicine, died from
excess of 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
8.9
Case of Onanism Commenced at the Age of Ten.
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 often that the slow fever
which resulted very soon terminated 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
masturbator a little later:
"I knew nothing of the vice of onanism until the
age of ten years, when one of my companions, at the
college 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 of my fault. I am now
eighteen, but though for three years I have not fallen
again, I am no less afflicted with frequent 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 I am sad. I have
four times changed my school, and everywhere I
have seen this kind of libertinism carried to excess.
Where I terminated my studies, we assembled often
90
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Terrible Case. Combining all the Miseries and Baseness.
in parties of twelve or fifteen to engage in 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 the rest having 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 sligh t loss of consciousness, and a convulsive move-
ment of the extensor muscles 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
frequent until he found himself in a condition which
led him to be apprehensive of death. Wise too late,
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
91
Case of L. T>. continued.
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 experi-
enced 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 entirely lost his
strength. Obliged to abandon his profession, inca-
pable of anything, 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 misfor-
tune, and to augment all the horror of his remorse.
I learned his condition; I visited him; I found less
a living being than a corpse groaning upon the
92
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Loathsome Condition of Mind and Body.
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 con-
stant slime flowed from the month; attacked with
diarrhoea, he rendered his excrements in his bed
without knowledge of the fact; the spermatic flux
was continual; bleared, troubled, and dull, he had
no longer the faculty of motion; the pulse was
extremely small and rapid; the respiration very
labored; the emaciation excessive, except at the
feet, which commenced to be dropsical. The dis-
order of mind was not less. Without memory;
incapable of connecting two phrases; without reflec-
tion; 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 recognize that he had formerly belonged
to the human species. 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 condition.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
93
Physical Symptoms and Condition of Masturbator.
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, spiritless physiognomy. The voice is
feeble and hoarse; there are dry cough, oppression,
panting, and fatigue on the least exertion; palpita-
tions; obscured visions; 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 tethargy; 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 con-
sumption, or the characteristics of decrepitude
joined to the habits and pretensions of youth.
Such is the physical degradation of the mastur-
bator. It is only, however, in habitual and
confirmed onanists that such grave alterations are
manifest, nor indeed, in most cases that all the evils
94
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Moral Degradation even Worse.
described are present. Enough has been said, how-
ever, to enable any intelligent observer to recognize
the confirmed onanist. Occasional offenders manifest
the same characteristics in different degrees, and it
would be difficult for even such to escape the prac-
ticed eye of the physician. Perhaps the most con-
stant 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
characteristics are, loss of memory and intelligence,
morose and unequal disposition, aversion, or indiffer-
ence to legitimate pleasures and sports, mental
abstractions, stupid stolidity, etc. A distinguished
German physician, Gottlieb Wogel, gives the fol-
lowing truthful picture:
4 4 The masturbator gradually loses his moral facul-
ties ; 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
to reply to a child's question; his feeble soul sue-
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
95
Picture Drawn by a German Physician.
cumbs 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 tal-
ents are soon exhausted; previously acquired knowl-
edge is forgotten; the most exquisite intelligence
becomes naught, and no longer bears fruit; all the
vivacity, all the pride, all the qualities of the spirit
by which these unfortunates formerly subjugated or
attracted their equals, abandon them, Bnd 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 affec-
tions, banish every agreeable sensation from their
minds. /The last crisis of melancholy and the most
frightful suggestions 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 fre-
quently happens that the most complete folly and
frenzy are manifest from the first."
According to Dr. Franck, "Masturbators are not
96
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Different Degrees of Punishment.
only a charge upon society, but are even dangerous,"
and this celebrated physician exhorts governments
to exercise over them the most active supervision.
Says Dr. Debreyne:
"Consider now this imbruted and degraded being;
behold him bent under the weight of crime and
infamy, dragging in darkness a remnant of material
and animal life. Unfortunate! He has sinned
against God, against nature, and against himself.
He has violated the laws of the Creator; has disfig-
ured the image of God in his own person, and has
changed it into that of the beast, imago bestice. He
is even sunken below the brute, and, like him, looks
only upon the ground. His dull and stupid glance
can no longer raise itself toward Heaven; he no
longer dares lift his miserable brow, already 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 horri-
ble 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.
97
Dangers to Reformed Onanists.
minority, those who persist in the practice will sooner
or later surely be included. Let no one delude him-
self 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 horrible of all deaths; and those who
practice the most limited and occasional acts of
onanism will surely be punished in proportion to
their crimes; while the very individuals who seem to
escape, are those who most surely carry the punish-
ment for the remainder of their lives, never live to
attain old age, and most frequently fall victims to
some grave chronic disease, 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,
etc., by reason of his bad antecedents, and the
deteriorated 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
98
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Fearful prevalence of this Vice in Boarding-SchoolB.
time, all of whom sustain every word we have
uttered concerning the horrible consequences of this
crime: Hippocrates (de Morbis, 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); Hoffman (Consult.);
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 searching inquiry, to ascertain the fact.
If there exist a single exception, it must be a board-
ing-school of angels.
It was the case in every boarding-school to which
we ourself were sent as a boy, and in our
whole professional career we have never lost an
opportunity of satisfying ourself upon the question
of its continued existence. In conversation with
professors and teachers of both sexes, from the
university to the village school, these horrible
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
99
Sudden Deterioration of Youthful Prodigies.
apprehensions have been more than confirmed.
Let those who read these pages reflect upon
the numberless instances which must have come
within the observation of all medical or lay obser-
vers 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 up-
ward—who suddenly, without obvious cause, became
stupid as dunces, or losing their vivacity, seemed to
fail rapidly in intelligence, and to disappoint the
high hopes which had been entertained of them.
Ninety-nine per cent, of these examples are eases in
point.
100
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Humber of Female Masturbators Enormous.
IV.
FEMALE SELF ABUSE.
LAS, that such a term is possible! O! 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 advance, that every young creature into
whose hands this book may chance to fall, if she be
yet pure and innocent, 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 description of its conse-
quences. We believe that a smaller proportion of girlw
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 generally
ignored. Even tolerable physicians seem oblivious

Satan ih society.
ioi
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 ignorant, and of which the causes are in
perpetual operation.
Beyond all dispute the crime exists, and incon-
testably 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 "Dictionnairedes Sciences
Medicates:"
i' Naturally more timid and more secret than boys,
the effects of their reunion, although very fatal, are |
less than in the latter. At the same time a culpable
negligence in the boarding-schools of * young
ladies,' too frequently allows to be introduced there
the disorders of masturbation. This practice is dis-
sembled from the impenetrative or careless eyes of
the teacher under the guise of friendship, which is
carried, in a great number of cases, to a scandalous
extent. The most intim ate 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
102
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Distinguished Frenchman's Caution.
made us shudder. The clandestine reading of cer-
tain books, in which abject authors have traced, in
the liveliest colors, 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 passion with young
persons, is to-day one of the most active causes of
their depravation."
With girls, as with boys, the genital organs may
be constitutionally endowed with excessive predom-
inance of action, which masters all the affections, ali
the movements 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, commit
this crime!"
Human nature, however, is much the same the
world over, and a habit so easily acquired and prac-
ticed, so little suspected, or entirely ignored, and
which, for these and certain physical reasons, girls are
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 103
%-;
Origin of many of the Diseases of Unmarried Women.
even more liable to contract than boys, may well excite
astonishment and alarm, and render the distinguished
Frenchman's caution equally appropriate here: "There
is no 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 operation, he will prescribe with fruitless results.
The broken health, the prostration, the great debil-
ity, the remarkable derangements of the gastric and
uterine functions, for which the physician is con-
sulted, too often have this origin, and when the cause
is investigated 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 reveal 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 skill-
104
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
History of a Young Heiress of Ten or Twelve Years.
ful physicians[of Paris. At length the physician who
has furnished this narration was summoned. He was
not more fortunate than his colleagues. Unable to
explain this general failure to relieve, and the con-
stantly increasing debility of the patient, he imparted
to the mother his suspicions of the cause of all these
accidents that nothing subdued. The mother, exceed-
ingly astonished, and almost indignant at an asser-
tion which appeared to her so rash, earnestly main-
tained that the thing was impossible, 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 govern-
ess. She was se..;t to her aunt in the country, in
order the better to watch her in this intentional isola-
tion. This aunt, taking advantage of the ascendency
which she had obtained over the girl's mind, sub-
jected her to a secret interrogation. She was moved,
embarrassed, discountenanced, but confessed noth-
ing. Her embarrassment had already betrayed her,
and from that moment, in the estimation of the aunt,
her fault was assured. Soon the doctor arrived,
SATAN IN SOCIETY. . 105
An old Governess Satan's Agent in the Affair.
who directed against the poor child a last
and vigorous attack. Mademoiselle,' said he,
with a tone of authority, certainty, and conviction,
'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 unexpected language the young girl was
much affected. Being urged, she hesitated, looked
at her aunt, and avowed all. It was her old gover-
ness who had taught her masturbation. The aid of
medicine proved powerless to restore the health
which she had lost."
After this, trust women, trust r^irses, trust gov-
ernesses, believe mothers! Noliie 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
106
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Mental and Moral Symptoms.
circle around the eyes, which are sunken, dull, and
spiritless; a sad expression, dry cough, oppression and
panting on the least exertion, the appearance of
incipient consumption. The menstrual periods often
exist, at least, in the commencement, 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 legimate pleas-
ures, and a host of other characteristics common to
the two sexes. The condition called u nymphomania"
sometimes ensues, in which the most timid girl is
transformed into a termagant, and the most delicate
modesty to a furious audacity which even the
Effrontery of prostitution does not approach.
Let it not be supposed that the absence of the
seminal secretion in woman, renders this vice less
destructive than in man. Ubi irritatio ibi fiuxus
(where there is irritation there is increased secre-
tion) 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 leucor-
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
107
Onanism a Solitary, also a Contagious, Vice.
rhoeal discharge (called the u whites,") now so
common as to be well-nigh the rule rather than the
exception.
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:
"Eepeated admissions have also convinced me that
leucorrhea and chronic inflammation of the womb,
so common with the women of our cities, most fre-
quently owe their origin to former, and sometimes
to recent, excesses of this nature!"
We have termed onanism a solitary vice, and noth-
ing is more just. It has also been termed a contagi-
ous 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 common—and great care,
watchfulness, and supervision should be, and to a
108
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Bonb'le Onanism. Husband and Wife alike Guilty,
certain extent are exercised, in order that this horri-
ble evil may not entirely depopulate these establish-
ments.
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 mas-
turbator, 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 unfor-
tunate beings did not suspect that it was precisely
their shameful practice which was the most insur-
mountable 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 pen-
etrate, and to return two persons to the sole enjoy-
ments 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
109
Suspicious Circumstances Requiring Investigation.
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
habits of a young person should awaken suspicion;
for masturbation leads them to solitude. Have an
eye, then, upon those who prefer darkness and soli-
tude; who remain long alone without being able to
give good reasons for this isolation. Let vigilance
attach itself principally 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 generally she prefers to hide her
head under the coverlet. She has scarcely goneTiO
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 fre-
quently 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 covered with perspiration unaccounted for
no
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Avoid not the Subject through False Delicacy.
by the temperature of the room, the warmth of the
covering, or any other observable cause. . The
breathing is at the same time mor-e precipitate, the
pulse more developed, harder, and quicker, the blood-
vessels fuller, and the heat greater 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 contem-
plate. We believe that we have said enough to terrify
parentskboo"freneedftil-precautions against it. If so
xmuch has been accomplished our object is fully
realized. We remark, however, in conclusion, that
it is not sufficient to use merely ordinary precau-
tions of a judicious watchfulness; 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 delicacy, and such
lessons should be imparted on the dreadful conse-
quences 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-
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Ill
Ordinary Precautions not Sufficient.
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.
112 SATAN IN SOCIETY.
The Right of Children to be Bora.
v.
THE SACRED RIGHTS OF OFFSPRING.
CHILDREN have the right to be born! Alas!
that this God-given privilege should ever be
called in question! That it is so, however, the tes-
timony of modern physicians, the daily records of
the newspapers, the fulminations from the pulpit,
the remonstrances of philanthropists, and the fore-
bodings of philosophers abundantly prove.
If we examine the history of abortion, we shall find
that this crime, now so commonly practiced as to
demand the attention it is receiving from moral-
ists, is of extremely ancient origin, having existed
among pagan nations from the earliest times: that
the influence of Christianity has ever been to ban-
ish the practice, and that in proportion as Christian-
ity becomes weakened or destroyed, the fearful
evil in question re-appears and extends.
SATAN IN SOOIETT.
113
Abortion a Monstrous Heresy.
^mKsmmmmamm^ma i « mboti . — ■ —
The Roman women did not scruple to disembar-
rass themselves of a pregnancy which might inter-
fere 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 popula-
tion, and taught that the child only acquires a soul
at the moment of mature birth; hence, that the
embryo not possessing animation, its sacrifice is not
murder. This monstrous heresy against religion,
science, and common sense is not without its imita-
tors in our own time. Modern sophists pretend
that before a certain period of intra-uterine exist-
ence, which they term "animation," the embryo has
neither life nor soul; that, consequently, its destruc-
tion before that period is an evil, perhaps, but in cer-
tain cases, is lawful.
Witness the following letter received by the author
not many months ago, from a clergyman of great
influence in the community where he resides—-a gen-
tleman 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:
114
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
•I
Letter from an Influential Clergyman*
"Dear Sir :—Since my wife returned home she has
not been at all well; she has seemed very much
fatigued, etc. This morning after rising, she was
taken with a severe fit of vomiting. Is not this one
of the symptoms attendant upon a certain condition?
We are both somewhat alarmed about the matter, and
we have further firmly decided that we must have no
further 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 condition there would be nothing at all
wrong. But knowing 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 indicating, in a familiar manner, our views on
this subject:
SATAN IN SOOIETT.
115
Reply of the Author.
"Beverend Sir,—Yours of is received. It
is impossible to decide at the present stage whether
your wife is pregnant or not. The morning sick-
ness, even if often repeated, would be very far from
proof, because in nearly all uterine ailments the
same sympathetic 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 irritation, 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. Indepen-
dently of all moral considerations, to assume that
she is pregnant, 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 certain: she
has a uterine affection entirely independent of
pregnancy, capable of producing all the symptoms she
ha& yet manifested. You seem to invite me to a dis-
cussion of another branch of the subject, and from
116
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Child has Being and Soul from moment of Conception.
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 sci-
ence. It belongs to each of us to speak" oracularly
in his proper sphere, but in this instance the two are
mutually dependent; you must base your teachings
upon the clearly determined facts of science, for true
science and true religion can never conflict. Now,
both declare positively that the child in the womb,
from the very moment of conception, has being and
soul, and consequently 'life or animation.' I presume
you intend by this expression 'life or animation,' the
moment when it could maintain existence independ-
ently 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, neither you
nor I can say when a being has not 'life or animation'
in the sense you probably intend ; and if we could
8ATAN IN SOCIETY.
117
Ab much your Christian Duty to Murder your Living Child.
determine the exact moment it would Dot alter the
case in the least. The civil law makes some discrim-
ination between 'viability and non-viability'; but
science is loudly demanding an obliteration of the
absurd distinction, and religion adds her powerful
voice. By religion I mean simply, in this connec-
tion, the common belief of all Christendom, irre-
spective 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 hundred-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,
it so happe?is, you now desire. But you must not
have two children, knowing your 'general circum-
stances,' 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
attach to the mother. In the one case you destroy
one life and jeopardize a second; in the other, you des-
118
SATAN IN SOCIETY, i
Any Physician undertaking it a Monster and Scoundrel.
troy but one life, and hazard nothing beyond it—that
is, in this world. Come, reverend sir, I will as soon
help you do one as the other. Certainly you can
as well persuade me of my 1 Christian duty' in the
one case as in the other. It does not alter the case
that physicians can be found ready to undertake the
affair.' Any physician who would undertake it is a
monster and a scoundrel, and would murder you ai2d
your entire family as readily, * for a consideration,'
providing the chances for detection were equal. I
conjure you, do not do 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 pos-
sesses the specific property of inducing miscarriage;
many will do it in some cases, but only secondarily;
that is, in proportion as they shatter the constitu-
tion, ruin the health, and produce a state of the sys-
tem 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 remains the
mechanical method, in which various instruments are
used, according to the taste of the operator. All of
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
119
Dangers to the Mother incidental to Abortion.
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 eves, und many cases do occur altogether
beyond che 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
infrequently takes on disease, and in place of a prat-
tling baby, you may be saddled for the remainder of
your life with a madwoman.
"Fourth, barrenness—a most common result.
'Circumstances' may change; it may seem the most
desirable thing in the world that your family should
increase,' but violated Nature defies you. Pregnancy
occurs often enough, but the womb gives up its con-
tents at precisely the same term as you forced it to
do before, and no art can come to your relief.
"Fifth, female weakness. The long train of sad
and tedious phenomena indicated by this popular
term, is absolutely multifarious—congestions,
120
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Result of the Correspondence.
ulceration, and prolapsus uteri, diseases of the
bladder, urethra, and rectum, 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 scribbled off some
of the prominent objections to your intended 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.
"Eespectfully, etc.,
It is due to these parties to mention that the
argument 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 refutation of the assertion that man can
ever usurp the functions 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 calculated to des-
troy 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:
Iatan in society.
121
Several Illustrative Cases.
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 physicians, 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 "hav-
ing 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
prospect of an acquisition, tried every known means to
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
122
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
0
Cases Continued. Enormous Prevalence of Child- Murder.
only son, killed, in the midst of exuberant health,
by a most horrible accident.
A fourth, left penniless by the death of her hus-
band, was well-nigh persuaded by a friendly though
misguided acquaintance—one, alas, conspicuous for
many Christian 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 expe-
rience 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 anything like an adequate idea
of the enormous prevalence of child-murder. Let
the reader ask the physicians of his acquaintance—
they will verify our words.
It is not a pleasant thought that the very audience
before whom a preacher fulminates against the
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
123
Thoughts which are not Pleasant.
"great crime of the nineteenth century," is so far
sprinkled with the criminals that he feels the power-
lessness 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 cul-
pable sentiment of the community, which shall
neutralize their labors. It is not a pleasant thought
that the recognized motive for postponing to another
year the consideration of certain resolutions pre-
sented in the recent "Old School Presbyterian
Assembly," was the fact that many of the rich and
powerful of that society would be hurt.*
These thoughts are not pleasant—they are horri-
ble! 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
♦The resolutions referred to read as follows:
"Whereas, it is well known that unscriptural views of the marriage rela-
tion are becoming prevalent in some parts of onr land, so that its obliga-
tions are disregarded by many, and separation of husband and wife, and
divorces for slight and unwarrantable reasons, are becoming more frequent
every year; and
Whereas, the horrible crime of infanticide is also on the increase; and
Wliereas, the evils which these errors and crimes have already brought
upon the church and country, and the worse evils which they threaten
in the f ut»re, make it imperative that the whole power of the ministry and
Church of Jesus Christ should be put forth in maintainance of truth
and virtue in regard to these things; therefore be it
41 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 Scrip-
tural doctrine concerning the marriage relation, and that they warn them
against joining in wedlock any who gain divorces upon other than Scrip-
124
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Unscrupulous and Careless Practitioners Largely Responsible.
exception 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 profess-
ion are largely responsible for this wide-spread lax-
ity of sentiment; for once persuade people that
considerations of health may justify the procure-
ment of abortion, and they will easily devise other
considerations, with them equally powerful. Hence
it follows that mere motives of economy or of con-
venience 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 practitioners to
warrant the commission of an act which the same
tural 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 cor-
rupt 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 eternal 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 judg-
ment 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 Yorkt May 22,1869.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
125
An M. D. the Hero of Three Hundred Abortions.
Bcience 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 cer-
tain instrument well adapted to the infamous pur-
pose, he claims to have used it " several times since
this little work was commenced, and always with
success." In a subsequent work the same write?
admits that he only found abortion 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-
accusation, several attempts at his expulsion from
his county medical society have been defeated, and
he is accounted 44a brother in good standing" of
several learned bodies, and holds an enviable posi-
tion in a fashionable church and fashionable society.
This rascal walks unhung; for this the "Medical
Code" is primarily responsible, and after that the
126
SATAN IN SOCIETY
ii
Blnnders in Diagnosis.
"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 subsequents events;
and shall precious lives be sacrificed on this mere
fiat of feeble human judgment, and on a question-
able ruling? Suppose the opinion 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—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
"justifiable" abortion is nonsense; it is worse than
nonsense, it is itself criminal. Every pregnancy
must be allowed to progress to its full completion,
or in well-determined cases to the period of
13ATAN IN SOCIETY.
127
Science and Nature Assist Each Other. Appeal to our Fair Conn try-women.
"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 extraordinary 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 lias
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
"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 physicians, who assured hsr that she must
assent to the destruction of her baby, or die: "What!
*That is, when the child can live if prematurely born ; determined to be
possible after six months, when the operation for premature delivery may
be justifiable under certain circumstances not necessary to detail here.
128
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Science Limited in Her Scope.
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 com-
bined influence of the civil and medical codes, fewer
maternal lives would perish, and a far greater num-
ber of infantile lives would be saved than under the
present outrageous and unnatural system, and also
that the present toleration of "justifiable"
infanticide, as implied in the expression "criminal
abortion," opens the door for the most frequent and
frightful abuses of the "privilege," by leaving the
question of legality in particular instances, impos-
sible to be determined. On the lowest view of the
subject, namely: that thousands of lives are sacrificed
♦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.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
129
Decree of the Church. Custom of Pagan Nations.
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 dis-
cover 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 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 Green-
land, 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
130
SATAN IN SOCIETY,
Infanticide Common in Ancient Times.
of killing them still prevails in China, Australia,
and Kamchatka, 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 astrologers predict
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 question 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, Baby-
lonians, and other Oriental nations—even among
the Chinese. The ancient Norwegians put to death
female infants, if that sex was considered in excess
in the family. At Athens female children were very
numerously sacrificed. Plato and 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 magistrates the
power of deciding whether the father should or
should not rear the infant, who, if regarded as feeble
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
131
Let the Infant have the *1 Benefit of a Doubt.'
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
practiced among all people of antiquity, we observe
that the more commonly recognized mode of repres-
sing 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
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 con-
tradiction. We hope to be able, in another chapter,
to indicate the obvious remedies for this state of
affaire.
132
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Why the Earlier Scenes of the Drama are Elaborated and Exposed.
VI.
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF MARRIAGE.
HHHE extraordinary delicacy of this subject is such
. as to have hitherto absolutely prevented its dis-
cussion; 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 nuptial chamber, and discover there
the very beginning of evils so universally acknowl-
edged, yet so little understood.
From the preceding chapters the different relations
of man and woman on the night following the solemn
ceremony which has made them one flesh can be
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
133
The Man and Woman just before Marriage.
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 commisera-
tion 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 mysteri-
ously hinted by looks and actions more suggestive
than words. She has been taught to regard this
night as one of unspeakable 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 appre-
hensions, 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 capable
at this moment, is the faintest spark of sexual passion.
On the other hand, the man, in the majority of
instances, 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 loving, but the whole tenor of his thoughts and
134
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Shrinking Timidity vs. TJngoverned Boldness.
experiences on this subject, are connected with
violence—indeed, dynamic consummation is, as he
falsely believes, the true idea of mercy. And with
this disparity between the forces—shrinking timidity
and misguided boldness—the match anticipated by
Juliet, is won and lost. Lost indeed for the poor
creature left mangled and terrified—nay, infinitely
disgusted! Love, affection 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 companion, 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 chamber;"
and the day which follows, filled as it is with fore-
bodings of the coming night, seems all too short for the
contemplations and the resolutions which crowd upon
her. Far from friends and kindred, with no sym-
pathizing one to whom she can tell a word of her
strange sorrow, with him who is miscalled her pro-
tector, revealing, by his every look and act, the
bestial thoughts which fill his breast, what wonder
is it that twenty-four hours-of marriage have been
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
135
The True Secret of the Fall of Married Women.
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 cicatrizes the wounds of body and soul.
The wounds received by the latter are serious
indeed. Passion is forever killed, or, if capable of
resuscitation, it is not at the hands of him who des-
troyed 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 then
136
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
This Exposure too Wanton for Apology if Kemediless.
nefarious practices almost in 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 interested
are hoodwinked, well-nigh rivals the credulity of
him whose sudden restoration to sight was so sur-
prising in its revelations.
Now if, in the opinion of the author, all this were
without remedy, if we had nothing to offer beyond the
sickening exposure, too painful for the most studied
narration, we should deem the foregoing too wanton
for apology. 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 crimiiw, beastly, and unnatural process des-
cribed, 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, mis-
guided man, and the retransformationis accomplished
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
137
The Fact of Child-bearing no Evidence of Enjoyment.
by wily, villainous man. In both cases man is
accountable, yet society holds him guiltless. Woman
is pure and 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, accord-
ing to choice—and consequently must have derived
reciprocal 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 gratification.
In the French hospitals the experiment has been
successfully tried, of impregnation of a woman
while unconscious 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 enjoy-
ment, but only of capacity for enjoyment. Now, for
a process of nature to be repeated year after year, in
138
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Domestic Unhappiness in its Worst Form.
violation of her own intent and purpose, wherein the
pleasures and the pains are respectively monopolized
and avoided, wherein no reciprocity of feeling nor of
interest exists, wherein increasing disgust involun-
tarily fastens on the one, and a brutish indifference
possesses the other, what is this but domestic unhap-
piness 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
secondary 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, untrammeled 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 unhappiness!
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.
139
The Nuptial Chamber. Advice to the Husband.
under Providence, we hope to do clearly and un-
equivocally. 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 follow 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 '6 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 decision 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 are
artificially 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 awkward pro-
140
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Further Advice to the Husband.
ceeding, sufficiently protracted for all practical
purposes; but society lias 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. Tour first words
should be those of re-assurance and sympathy.
Assure her most positively that her apprehensions
are groundless, 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 when-
ever your happy marriage shall be consummated,
neither violence nor suffering 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 cultivation of her
womanly passion will enable you to fulfill your pledge
to the very letter. You should know that in rare
cases days or even weeks must elapse before 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, rather than 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.
141
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 derive our conclusions are
very numerous, the first conjugal 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
existence. Thus will you secure not only happiness
and love for yourself, but that perfect confidence
and gratitude from your wife which shall make her
literally a sharer in your joys, as she must needs be
in your sorrows. You should neyer forget that this
passion is ordinarily slower of growth and more tardy
of excitation in women than in men, but when fairly
aroused in them it is incomparably stronger and
more lasting. This, of course, with due allowance
142
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
How Often may the Conjugal Act be Repeated.
for differences of individual temperaments. There-
fore be careful to avoid a most common error of
unphilosopliical man, that of undue haste and pre-
cipitation 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 exactly 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. Begard must always be had to instruc-
tions already stated; namely, that nothing should
induce a man to gratify his own desires atthe 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
143
Moderation on Both Sides Required.
be, in all cases, to keep within but never to exceed the
limits of fond desire. Franklin's rule for eatmg,
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 organiza-
tion than her own, and so it is important that the
woman also should be familiarized with the
"physiology of matrimony," sufficiently, at least, to
refrain from too exacting or frequent demands.
Whatever may be her feelings, 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
attribute, as well as her most successful guarantee
of continued conjugal happiness. Something should
always be held in reserve, no less of her capacity for
1U
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
14 Love Moderately; Long Love doth so.**
bestowing and receiving enjoyment, than of her
personal and 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 remain 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.
44 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 comparative youth and health of both parties,
and when no circumstances exist to render abstinence
a necessity.
There are but two legitimate methods of avoiding
increase 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 calcu-
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
145
Legitimate Means of Limiting Offspring.
>
lations of economy should have a feather's
weight in the adoption of either. Whom the Lord
endows with existence He provides for, according to
the needs of His children, and no mere human fore-
sight can discover whether economy lies in the
increase or diminution in the number of children.
The first and incomparably 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 propriety. We allude here to
the law of partial continence; that is, absolute avoid-
ance 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 certain cases may
be shortened by two or even four days, but these are
exceptional cases, and there are no practical means
of ascertaining with positiveness the exceptions to
the rule. All other methods of prevention of
offspring are disgusting, beastly, positively wrong-
ful, 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 prepara-
tions with such an object savor too much of cold-
146
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
All other Methods Wicked and Injurious.
blooded calculation to be even possible with pure-
minded people. At best, the conjugal act should be
spontaneous, and directly in 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 crimi-
nal 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, however, that, without a single exception,
they are certainly productive of disastrous conse-
quences to health. But there is a practice so
universal that it may well be termed a national vice,
so common that it is unblushingly acknowledged by
its perpetrators, for the commission 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."
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
147
The Crime of Onan.
Who can doubt that Almighty God, in this terrible
punishment, wished to impart to man a positive moral
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.
Ministers of the gospel, prominent church members,
the very elite 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 accom-
plishment. 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
148
SATAN IN SOCIETY,
Conjugal Onanism continued.
only never borne him children, but was so constituted
that she seemed incapable of permitting full com-
pletion 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 maneuver 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 medical
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 incontestably 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
149
Effects Similar to those of Masturbation. Effects Upon Women,
spinal marrow, functional disorders, organic
diseases of the heart, lungs, and kidneys,
wastings of the muscles, blindness, and frequently
by impotence. The effects, in fact, are slower in
development, but the same in kind. The victim finally
succumbs 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 incomplete, the congestion does not immedi-
ately relieve itself, and inflammations, ulcerations,
and final sterility are the results. The phenomena
known as female weaknesses are produced oftener
by this than by all other causes combined. Derange-
ments of the bladder, rectum, and womb arising
from this cause are well-nigh intractable. 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 injus-
tice is practiced upon the woman in the incomplete-
ness of the act It is impossible for a woman,
150
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Illustrative Case. Injunction of Continence.
however passionate and loving she may be, to reach
the true crisis of the sexual act when conjugal
onanism is practiced. It is well known to physiolo-
gists that the contact of the seminal fluid with the
neck of the womb, is a positive 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 repe-
titions 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 unhappiness is
added to those already enumerated. But these con-
siderations 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 tem-
porary continence. Scarcely a week elapsed, when we
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
151
Case continued. Injunction Disregarded.
received from our patient the following ludicrous, yet
sufficiently touching, recital: "I informed my hus-
band of the doctor's positive injunction, to which he
promised a cheerful obedience, and we commenced to
occupy separate apartments. But, after three or four
days, became to me one morning, and insisted on my
compliance with his wishes. In vain I pleaded my
physician's instructions. He urged the following
plea: 4 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 unnecessary restriction.' Now,
doctor, what could I do? There was much force in
what he said, and it seemed cold and selfish in me
to refuse (!), so my fealty to my husband got the
better of my obedience to my physician." Now,
when it is considered that this truly wretched woman
was suffering from a combined inflammation of the
bladder, womb, and rectum, and that the act in ques-
tion could only be attended by absolute torture, and,
152
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
"So ought Men to Love their Wives as their own Bodies."
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
brutal selfishness of her "hard-working husband,"
is at once apparent. Tet 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 continence—even though temporary—
becomes a necessity.
That man is, by his very nature, hard, selfish, and
tyrannical toward woman we have elsewhere suffi-
ciently proved. We have also shown the causes and
cure of this oppression. Christianity, however,while
vastly ameliorating the condition of women 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 your-
selves to your 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 entirely ignored.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
153
The Law ignores Cruelty in the exercise of " Marital Rights."
A woman of much social and intellectual distinction
said, not long ago, "When my husband closes the door
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 1 i marital rights" there
would seem to be, literally, no redress either in
"Church or State." Eeligion replies to such a
one, "Tour 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
honors in the high school of her city, and subse-
quently carried off the prizes for scholarship and
lady-like accomplishments 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
154
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Case in Court. Strong Evidence.
months after her marriage, and a more pitiful
spectacle has seldom come within our professional
observation. We could scarcely realize that the
haggard and emaciated creature before us was the
wreck of the beautiful girl so recently proverbial for
her fascinations. In place of the brilliant eyes,
flashing with proud intelligence, her dull and listless
orbs told the sad story of already approaching
insanity. A few questions, followed by a physical
examination, 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 rectum, all were fearfully inflamed and
mangled. The case was simply dreadful. Separa-
tion was obtained. Many painful weeks of treatment
succeeded in restoring 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 statements of
the wife and full admissions by her husband that a
course of incredible brutality, arising from his fien-
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
155
Cancer of Womb as a Result of Conjugal Onanism.
dish 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
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! Posi-
tively, during the same session of the same court,
some twenty odd divorces were granted upon allega-
tions which, compared with what this poor woman
had suffered, were Jieavenly virtues. And now comes
this same brutal husband and applies in his turn for
a divorce from his wife on the ground of deser-
tion! 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 reserve 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 constitutional proclivity to cancer
exist in an individual, the practice of this svice is
almost sure to develop it
If the ejection of the seminal fluid upon the mouth
156
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Philosophy of its Operation.
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 certain specific pro-
perty which, as it were, remedies the otherwise
dangerous condition, in which the womb and vagina
are placed by the venereal excitement. And this
property is something peculiar, 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 genera-
tive 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 persists to a con-
siderable extent, and new congestions being suc-
cessively added to the preceding, there result, at
first, what are termed engorgements, then inflamma-
tions, then follow ulcerations, and then, if there be
the least predisposition to cancer, those frightful,
malignant degenerations suceeed which carry so
many victims to premature graves.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
157
Infidelity of Wives a Result.
There remains still another grave danger to
be apprehended 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 infidelity
on the part of the wife is often traceable directly
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 the lessons
acquired in her own marriage bed—lessons which
have taught her how she can violate her marriage
vows ivithout fear of detection! Her chastity, for-
sooth! 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 remains
158
SAtfAN IN SOCIETY
Intercourse during Pregnancy.
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 a
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 com-
mitting adultery." Her answer was somewhat
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 suggestive 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 certain 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 indul-
gence is permissible, while moralists urge that the
virtue of husbands would be endangered 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
*Parentes primis septem a conceptione diebus ac tempore partui proxime
ad abstnenduma maritale congressu obligantur, propter abortus timorom*
SATAN IN SOCIETY. 159
Intercourse During Pregnancy continued.
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
the sexual act being absent, no physiological end
can be subserved, and the practice is, therefore;
against Nature, and consequently injurious. 11 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 preg-
nancy is sacred from masculine approaches. 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 irreconcilable with all the precautions which
medicine and prudence enjoin upon the pregnant
woman. All causes of mechanical irritation, espec-
160
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Punishments for such Violations of Nature's Laws.
ially those which operate directly upon the womb or
neighboring organs, are strictly forbidden. Violent
mental emotions are deprecated 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 gesta-
tion, and therefore working serious injury to the
developing germ, or causing pain, congestions,
inflammations, floodings, and miscarriage. The cele-
brated accoucheur Levret attributes to coition "the
greater number of abortions of which the causes are
otherwise obscure." Zimmermann, Gardieu, Murat,
Duges, and many others concur in the statement that
it transcends in frequency all other causes combined.
Prostitutes who become pregnant almost invariably
miscarry; of two hundred cases of pregnancy among
them, miscarriage occurred in all but three!
Abortions during the first few days after concep-
tion, are exceedingly frequent, and often occur with-
out the knowledge of the parties. A woman "goes
over her time" by a few days, and then has some
pain and considerable flooding. She regards as
delayed menstruation what, in fact, was a veritable
conception; and these abortions are very frequently
repeated, eventuating in broken health and sterility.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
161
Abortions in the Early Stages of Pregnancy.
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
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 nevertheless a fact that the repeated attraction
of blood to the womb which excesses of this nature
must occasion, cannot fail to place it in those condi-
tions most calculated to engender not only great
dangers during childbirth, 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 pregancies, while those hideous objects known
as "monstrosities'' owe their abnormal development
to his above all other causes!
162
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Disastrous Consequence to Progeny of Excessive Coition.
If, then, excessive coition during pregnancy is
followed by such disastrous consequences, the effect
of even moderate indulgence can be only less in
degree. It must certainly exert some influence, and
to that extent is injurious. The best that can be
said of it is that it is a questionable means of pre-
serving a husband's virtue.
During lactation, also, the physiological aim of
sexual intercourse is in abeyance, as indicated by
the suspension of the menstrual function. It is cer-
tain that the whole resources of the female economy,
while nursing her infant, are absorbed and occupied.
She is living for tivo, and needs to be free from
physical and mental burdens. Nevertheless, as in-
stances 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, how-
ever, 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
163
Intercourse During Lactation. The Sexual Instinct in Old Age.
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 ascendancy in the mar-
ried life. In well-regulated lives the sexual pas-
sions 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
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 with-
out regret to the end of his mortal existence. Nor
is this the least sublime side of married life. Noth-
ing 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 struggles of life to those who owe to them their
164
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Intercourse after "Change of Life.'1 The Amorous Old Man.
existence, and thus far their maintainanee. 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
coffin." This caution is the concentration of wisdom,
and we commend it 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 difficulty 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
SATAN IN SOOIETy.
165
The Amorone Old Man continued.
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 derangement of reason. Time
whitens their heads without disenchanting their
spirit. Besides, a man of good constitution, whom
age has not yet overpowered, still experiences
perfidious and tempting reminiscences; all seems
young in him except the date of his birth. His
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 ardor, which once inflamed his blood
and his heart, but he does not deem himself an ath-
lete so disarmed that he ought entirely to abandon
the contest and the triumph. 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 superan-
nuated coxcombs, whose disgraces in love are con-
temptible, and whose successes are perfectly
ridiculous? Sometimes the evil is rooted in the
habits, and, as a thinker of our time has said, 'the
166
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
** To have Loved Women too Much, is to Love them Always."
punishment of those who have loved women too much
is to love them always.1
"It 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 con-
sist-r-above all in the decline of life—in the proper
accord of a remnant of force, an approved reason,
and sober conduct.
'4 Another motive equally impels certain old men to
dangerous excesses; it is the example of aged men who,
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
satisfaction, disposed, as they are, to reckon them-
selves in this Category of the predestinated. Thus,
the Marechal d* Estrees was married for the third
time at the age of ninety-one, and married say they,
'very ibriously? The Duke of Lauzun lived a long
time after having indulged in excesses of every
kind. The Marechal de Richelieu was married to
Madame de Roth at the age of eighty-four, and, they
add, 'with impunity1 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?
SATAN IS SOCIETY.
167
The Time of Life When Strict Continence Should be Maintained.
"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 examples. 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! "*
Besides the numerous evils which old men pro-
duce by the inconsiderate indulgence in sexual
pleasures, it should be understood that sudden death
is sometimes the immediate consequence, by hemor-
rhage of the brain (apoplexy), or rupture of large
blood-vessels. These accidents happen as the con-
sequence of a violent and undue emotion, accelerat-
ing the pulsations of the heart, or of efforts which,
for the moment, suspend respiration.
The precise period of life at which it is imperative
that a man should maintain continence for the
remainder of his existence, it is, of course, impossi-
ble to state, dependent as it is on a great variety of
circumstances, as the constitution of the individual,
and the expenditure of his virile forces in early life,
*Revetlle-Pabise. Traite de la Vieillesse,
168
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Deliverance from the Tyranny of the Sexual Instinct.
In doubtful cases an experienced physician should
be taken into confidence. 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 pru-
dent and continent; that temperance, so justly called
sophrosyne (guardian of wisdom) with the ancients,
has in him a fervent worshipper. In fact, has he
not acquired complete moral liberty? Is he not
delivered from a violent tyranny? Such was the
opinion 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 aban-
doned 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 dis-
posed to make the least sacrifice in this respect. Ifc
is necessary that you resolve upon it, however; you
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
169
Change in the Organs of Generation.
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—difficult solution of
the grand problem of life. Well, renounce that
which is no longer in harmony with your age, tem-
perament, and forces. Accept from age peace, re-
pose, and wisdom, in exchange for the transports
and the flames of passion. Kemember, moreover,
that to qaii before losing entirely is, in many re-
spects, an essential 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 nerer 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 Like It, Act II, Scene IHV
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."
(Macbeth, Act V, Scene III.)
The effect of these excesses on aged women ij
different, but not less serious. After the function of
* Op. cit. p. 431, et seq.
170
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Intercourse during Menstruation.
menstruation has at length entirely ceased, a remark-
able 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 vaginal secretions, in fact, are altered
or abolished. Every thing goes to prove the inapt-
ness of these organs for the act of reproduction.
Cancer of the , womb or neighboring organs, so com-
mon in women of advanced age, is often the result
of these unnatural connections. While infrequent
and moderate indulgences are not usually followed
by disastrous consequences, habitual excesses are
sure to be severely punished.
Sexual intercourse during the menstrual period
need scarcely be mentioned, save to warn against its
, dangers. 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 conception this proscribed period is
selected. It is dangerous for both parties, for
reasons whicl re need not dwell upon. It is suffi-
cient 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
171
Ill-assorted Marriages.
to be considered. The most common is disparity
of ages. It is inconceivable with what stupid
and ridiculous vanity lecherous old men are
wont to seek for young wives. It is still more
inconceivable that their search is so often success-
ful. 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.
In these monstrous alliances, whether we consider
the reciprocal situation of the parties thus abus-
ively joined, or the kind of progeny which is likely
to result from them, we are equally moved with dis-
gust 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
172
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Bitter Regrets and Criminal Hopes. Resort to Adulterons Love.
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 husband. In fact, the amours of o]d
men are ridiculous and hideous, as we have already
stated (see page 171), and the poor creature con-
demned to witness, but above all to endure them, can
hardly be sufficiently commiserated. When one
reflects upon this revolting subject he can not resist
a sensation akin to that inspired by the idea of
incest. AH 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
instincts, the most noble thoughts, and the most
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
173
Effect on the Man. Prohibitory Laws Demanded.
legitimate hopes. Such are the terrible penalties
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, inherent to the exer.cise 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
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 solemrized. A law
174
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
The Products of Snoh Marriages.
of this nature would do much toward reforming the
injustice, now daily committed, in the re-marriage of
widowers, the rights of whose children are thus ruth- ■
lessly invaded. Domestic infelicity of the most fla-
grant character is thus introduced in families
whose home-circles had been hitherto models of
innocent happiness. The evil would be well nigh
remedied by the proposed legislation, for, if the
temptation to seek 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 conditions 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 propor-
tion as their growth progresses, these unfortunate
innocents acquire more and more of the senile
expression, and either succumb in their childhood to
the diseases for which they are proverbially an easy
prey, or they eke out a miserable and puny exist-
ence, rarely attaining to adult age.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
175
Illustrative Cases. The Wife should Never be the Senior of the Husband.
Disparity of ages in which the woman is the older
is a comparatively rare occurrence. Melancholy
instances 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 entailing not only positive unhappi-
ness, but grave dangers to health.
In no case should the age of a woman exceed that
of her husband, to however slight an extent. The
earlier relative period of "old age" will mart this
disparity very painfully as time progresses, a dispar-
ity 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,* cannot long postpone the evil
* A recent analysis of all the "hair restoratives" of repute, embracing
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, neuralgia, paralysis, and very frequently death itself,
result from the use of these diabolical contrivances.
176
SATAN JN SOCIETY.
Sad Effects.
day when the poor creature, the senior of her hus-
band, finds herself the unmistakable "old woman,"
no longer personally attractive to her husbstnd,
himself, perhaps, in the very pride of manly
beauty. It is in precisely these circumstances
that so many men justify themselves in the estab-
lishment of criminal relations, often introducing
their paramours into the very household, under the
guise of servants, governesses, etc., but more fre-
quently maintaining separate establishments. These
horrors are too often known or suspected by the
unhappy wife, who, ufor 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 fortitude, 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 con-
ditions, 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 generation free from all
faulty conformation which may interfere with the
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
177
True procreative Maturity.
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
performed without danger to health, and in which
the 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 procreative ability has existed for
some time without employment, so that it may have
completely developed, and be able to manifest its
fullest powers. To this end it is essential that the
seminal 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 profit-
able results. This rule, based upon experience, is
* A caution but little required in this age and country.
178
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Minimum Marriageable Age in Different Countries.
equally applicable to man, and with far greater
force, no less as regards the parents than the fruit
of their union.
The civil laws of different times and countries have
fixed the minimum age of parties to the marriage con-
follows: With the Eomans 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 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 ru3t|5 for actual practice. It is simply intended to
fix the minimum nubile age for each of the sexes.
Extended 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
179
Five Years the Minimum, Fifteen the Maximum.
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 fol-
lows 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 single marriage. At least six or eight
children should be the average product of well-
assorted marriages.
Of ill-assorted marriages, in respect to consanguin-
ity, 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 proverbially feeble and delicate.
The difficulty of "raising" such children is but too
well known to all physicians of any experience. In
nearly all civilized countries civil legislation, as well
♦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 te nine.
180
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Consanguinity.
as religious laws, have fixed the degrees of con-
sanguinity, within which they refuse to sanction
marriages. This prohibition is based upon the fol-
lowing 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
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
marriage between relations is tolerated only to the
third degree; at Siam, Egypt, and Peru one might
marry his sister; with the Caribbees, Chilians, and
Scythians a man could marry his daughter; among
the Arabians, 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 dis-
astrous, in that they all tend to the premature
extinction of races. This fact has been clearly
SATAK IN SOCIETY.
181
Customs of Different Nations.
demonstrated in a remarkable work by De Ohateau-
neuf, upon "The Duration of Noble Families in
France." This learned statistician has proved that
nearly all the old families of a portion of Europe
have long since ceased to exist. His observations
embrace France, Italy, England, and Spain. In Ger-
many, Holland, and Switzerland the male descendants
of William Tell have been extinct for nearly two
centuries. If some grand names have escaped the
general destruction, it has been by the aid of subter-
fuges of every sort, such as the infinite number of
substitutions, the transmission of names by women
of other families, etc. Expedients of this nature
abound in the annals of old monarchies.
In a communication to the Academy of Medicine,
in Paris, in 1856, Dr. Eilliet of Geneva, states in
substance as follows: that in Geneva a considerable
number of intermarriages have occurred among
blood relations, 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.)
182
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Consequence of Marriage between Eolations.
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.
8. Products which die in infancy in greater pro-
portion 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 the 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
183
Marriage between Blood Relations continued.
per cent, of the idiots placed in the different estab-
lishments of the United States are the issue of mar-
riages* between first cousins. Of seven hundred and
fifty-seven marriages between first cousins, two hun-
dred and fifty-six produced deaf-mutes, blind and -
idiots. Of four hundred and eighty-three other
marriages of first cousins, one hundred and fifty-one
had sickly children, and many were sterile. In sev-
eral States—Kentucky included—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 dis-
coloration of the skin, soft flesh, white, silvery, fine
hair. Their eyelids are agitated with an incessant
winking, 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
184
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Albinos. Physical Anomalies in Villages.
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 not related, and by whom he
has had four children, all in excellent health,
and presenting no trace of Albinism. This example
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
small New England towns, in the great number of
physical anomalies contained in them. Idiots,
dwarfs, hunchbacks, imbeciles, cripples, insane, and
blind persons seemed to form a considerable propor-
tion of the small population of these places. He
has long since found the solution of the mystery in
the intermarriage of those connected by consan-
guinity—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 cannot dwell longer upon this subject,
at the same time so vast and so interesting, 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 therefore
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
185
Who may Marry. u Crossing of Temperaments."
unnatural, criminal, and revolting. In the absence
of penal enactments on the subject, the inherent
punishment should deter every well-informed person
from the commission of so great an imprudence.
There is, however, another condition generally
neglected 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, constitutions, and peculiarities in such
a manner that the products 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 conforma-
tion. 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 constitutions, temperaments, and idiosyncrasies,
the elements of morbid inheritance possessed by the
parties. The union of two lymphatic, or of two
evidently nervous 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
186
SATAN IN SOCIETY,
"Crossing" continued.
affected with general debility, etc. A predisposi-
tion to analogous affections constitutes, in the eyes
of the physician, another incompatibility in mar-
riage. Scrofula and consumption would form a
sordid nursery; while a woman issued from consump-
tive parents, but married to a robust and healthy man,
may become the happy mother of a valid generation,
which, crossed in its turn, with blood of good alloy,
will produce another generation which shall be alto-
gether irreproachable; for the propensity to here-
ditary maladies ends by exhausting itself. Stahl,
Bordeau, Buchan, Pujol, Baumes, Gintrac, and P.
Lucas think thus. Unhappily, physicians are not
consulted in the composition of laws, and nothing is
stipulated in our codes in favor of the physical ame-
lioration 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
striking 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,f "inheritance shows itself
* Michel Levy, TraiU d' hygiene publique et privee. Paris, 1857.
t Op. tit.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
187
Transmission of Organic Peculiarities.
in man both in his general form and in the relative
proportion of its parts. It is manifested by the
intimate properties of the organic fiber, if one may
use that expression; motions, attractions, features,
tone of voice, functional peculiarities, 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 individuality.
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 con-
formation, the physiognomy, the form, the color."
There were Eoman families called Nasones,
Labeones, from the salient feature which denoted
the hereditary influence. Temperament, idiosyn-
crasies, general characteristics of the organism, are
all transmitted, equally with external resemblances.
Original defects and deformities are often trans-
mitted, such as blindness, deafness, imbecility,
idiocy, hare-lip, hernias, etc. All authors cite
examples of individuals with one or more super-
188
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Transmission of Defects.
numerary 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
Derbaeh mentions a Spanish family, forty members
of which had an extra number of fingers. Science
teems with similar facts.
Adrien de Jussieu communicated to two learned
societies, in 1827, an interesting case of hereditary
conformation. 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 mutilations transmitted to offspring#
With the lower animals this phenomenon is not
infrequent.
The predisposition to diseases is a sad and last
* We remember a comical scene at which we assisted, many years ago,
when a gentleman, ecstatic in the first glories of a father, inquired of ns if
we had discovered any peculiarity in the hands or feet of his cherub, then
lustily responding to the first application of 6oap and water. We assured
him there was "nothing wrong with the baby," but he clearly intimated
that "something would be wrong''1 unless we should discover an odd
number of finger or toe9—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 angle from its legitimate fellows! Our friend drew a long sigh of
relief, and—kissed his wife. Several subsequent children have been equally
pleasing to their indisputable progenitor.
8ATAN IN SOCIETY.
189
Crossing of Races and Temperaments.
proof of the bond which unites the successive gener-
ations of the same family. The best manner of
correcting morbid hereditary predispositions, such
as consumption, gout, cancer, scrofula, etc., is the
crossing of races and temperaments, in order to
establish a sort of compensation between the nega-
tive qualities of one organism, and the excess, in an
opposite sense, of the other, whence results, in the
last analysis, a profitable proportion 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 of disease to offspring is not
the sole danger to be apprehended from incompatible
marriages. Besides those contagious diseases which
190
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Nuptial Contamination.
are so readily transmissible in sexual congress,
sad examples of which are constantly before phy-
sicians, it is now a well-established fact that by a
sort of chronic poisoning, consumption is com-
municated even to those who were apparently the
least predisposed to it. This nuptial contamina-
tion daily counts its victims unsuspected by the
community, because public attention has scarcely
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
married 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 prudence would seem to dictate that fami-
lies should seek the counsels of medical men in all
cases where there is the slightest suspicion of any
infirmity incompatible with the normal accomplish-
ment of the end of marriage—the propagation of
the species. In the absence of enlightened -views
upon this subject, the whole matter, unfortunately,
is left to the decision of chance, the deplorable con-
sequences of which are matters of daily observation.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
191
Faulty Conformation. Sex of Offspring.
We are often asked if there are any means of
determining, 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 conclu-
sions are as follow:
1. The sex of the progeny of given parties will
depend upon the relative vigor of their sexual
organization.
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
fecundation 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 connection, 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
192
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Sex of Offspring continued. Influence of Moral Conditions.
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 contradictory; for certainly the
fathers of illegitimate offspring are ordinarily the
most passionate of men. *
The influence upon offspring of the moral disposi-
tion of the parents at the moment of procreation is a
subject 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 generative function is intensified by gayety,
contentment, and in fact by all the expansive emo-
tions, while depressive emotions, as trouble, fear,
and anxiety, paralyze it. Intellectual labor and
violent emotions repress it. The power of the
imagination is demonstrated in all that relates to
the pleasure of love. Astonishing proofs are extant
♦There is a theory recently started, by certain respectable authors, that the
children conceived within the first six days after the cessation of the
monthly period, are girls, and those conceived after the ninth day, are boys.
We confess to a want of confidence in this theory, but give it ''for what it
is worth."
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
193
Influence of Moral Conditions continued. Imagination.
of the intimate physiological relation between every
thing pertaining to generation and the simple imagin-
ation. 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
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" for pregnancy, and passed through all the
usual symptoms attendant upon that condition,
including enlargement of the abdomen, tumefaction
and pain in the breasts, morning nausea, and even
swelling of the lower extremities. At the expected
"term" regular pains occurred, exactly simulating
those of labor, and physicians and attendants were
summoned to this extraordinary scene where nothing
was wanting, save the presence of a baby. Pichon
cites the case of a woman of forty-eight, who had
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
194
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Influence of Marriage upon Longevity.
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 severely 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-
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 position.
Of many hundreds of celibates who had attained
their seventieth year, there were found of
Priests,
42 per cent
JL llCDUDi » • ♦ • -
Agriculturists, . . . 40
Merchants and Manufacturers, . . 35 ^
Soldiers, . . . . • s? 4k
Clerks, 32
Lawyers,
Artists, . . . • • „
Teachers, . . . . '«J M
Physicians, • ^
*De P influence dn mariage sux la duree de la vie humaine. Par lo
octeur Casper*
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
195
Longevity of Bachelors.
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 scale. Let no one contend that
continence is incompatible 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 dictates of reason and common
sense. It is certainly opposed to sound physio-
logical views. Nature has decreed that the act of
reproduction shall be expensive to the individual, so
she surrounds it, in all cases, with something 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
196
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Continence and Longevity.
generative act, but that he may be at the same time
capable of accomplishing it and realizing its plea-
sures, she has imposed rules which he can not infringe
without greatly enhancing its perils. There are
symptoms closely allied to epilepsy in the crisis of the
venereal act, and in rare cases a veritable epileptic
convulsion. Venereal 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. Cer-
tain physiologists 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 necessary 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 a
ready 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 force thus attained. Severe mental labors, the
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
197
/
GenitiB or Children. Celibacy.
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 chil-
dren. La Fontaine, who well understood these mat-
ters, declares: Un muletier a cejeu vaut trois rots*
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 tem-
perament is an idiosyncrasy, real or acquired, most
frequently the latter, and is as amenable to proper
treatment as any other morbid condition. We do not
wish to be understood as advocating celibacy or per-
petual 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 conti-
nence 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
198
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
No Excuse for Libertinism.
pretexts be devised for resorting to vicious practices,
whether as regards the marriage bed or the estab-
lishment of illicit relations.
"We have not thought it necessary to touch upon the
effect of continence upon female organism, because
it is scarcely admitted as a question. Too many
instances are within the knowledge of all to render
any defence of the proposition necessary, that the
state of continence is positively innocuous for
women. The dangers of this condition, so feelingly
portrayed by certain medical writers, have been
proven not to exist.
The influence of maternal impressions, during
pregnancy, 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
199
Mother's Marks.
conceive the influence upon the offspring of 41 long-
ings" 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 cannot conceive how those
parts of the body already formed, can undergo a
change or destruction under the influence of any
emotions, however vivid. So we can believe that
certain portions of the skin may resemble that of
the animal which has frightened the mother; we
cannot 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
separation of the eyes, etc. These occurrences are
anything but marvelous when it is considered that in
the development 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
200
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Imaginary Resemblances.
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 imper-
fect developments with a purely fanciful resem-
blance. Dr. Belouino relates the following case, which
shows very well how these absurd rumors often
arise: "We remember to have attended a woman
during her confinement, who was in a state of great
inquietude 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
201
Marked with a Pear.
first child, that the baby would be parked 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 pedun-
cle 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, scarcely attracted the attention it deserves, and
yet it is of common observation. We allude to a
certain degree of mutual resemblance of feature and
expression which parties long married acquire.
There is evidently something more than mere coin-
cidence in this resemblance, since it is so often
remarked, and usually develops only with time. In
reality, there is nothiog surprising in the fact, as the
influence of the emotions upon the physiognomy 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 expressing the resulting emotions
should impress similar modifications upon the coun-
tenance of each. But, in our view, there is an
additional and far more interesting reason for this
202
SATAfl IN SOCIETY.
Theory of Mutual Resemblance of Man and Wife.
resemblance, which we mention with some diffidence,
inasmuch as, so far as we are aware, it has never
hitherto been noticed. During the whole period of
ante-natal existence the child derives the elements
of its growth and development from materials furn-
ished by the mother through the circulating medium
—the blood. But the child is not all mother, as it cer-
tainly partakes also of the physical nature of the
father. Now, the blood, in passing through the econ-
omy of the infant, while parting with those ingred-
ients 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 circulating 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 physical resemblance should
result. If this be true, and we see nothing unreason-
able in our hypothesis, the expression of Adam,
"bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh," becomes
of literal significance, and the beauty and intimacy
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
203
Marriage Considered iEstheticaUy.
of the marriage relation are infinitely enhanced. It
would also perfectly explain the otherwise myster-
ious 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 4 4 breeding
back" of animals. We can barely indicate here,
however, what can 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, aesthetically.
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 satisfaction under the penalty of
sinking to the level of the brute, and of failing in the
accomplishment of his destiny. 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
204
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Man is soon Weary of mere Carnal Pleasure.
of his productions. He does not otherwise in love.
Carnal, gross pleasure, disengaged from all partici-
pation of the heart, very soon becomes for him a
source of disgust, and an object of repulsion. He 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 deprive
him. Marriage has, consequently, a double end
applicable to the dual nature of man—the procreation
of the species, and the gratification of his love of
perfectibility. 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 imperious 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 in
its infinite delicacy, has not wished to reveal the
secret of the nuptial couch; it has left to the wisdom
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
205
Translation from Proudhon.
of each one the. care of penetrating the mystery
and of profiting by the instruction. It knows, how-
ever, that veritable love begins with this death;
that it is a necessary effect of marriage that gallantry
should change into worship; that every husband,
whatever he may pretend, is at the bottom of his
soul idolatrous; that if there is an ostensible con-
spiracy 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 the
empire from time to time; that with these rare
exceptions the woman is sovereign, and that therein
is the principle of conjugal tenderness and har-
mony."
Love in marriage is not only a state of domestic
happiness, which every one should seek in prefer-
ence to all the other elements which ordinarily enter
into matrimonial combinations; it is, as we have
already shown, one of the most powerful influences
which bear upon the qualities 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 physical and mental
qualities in their greatest perfection.
Marriage, then, properly regulated, exerts a power-
206
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Th© Married and Celibates contrasted.
fully beneficent influence upon the individual, and
consequently upon private manners. Unlike the
bachelor, whose leading characteristics are selfish-
ness, narrowness of views, eccentricity, and obstin-
acy, the married man allies himself more closely to
the grand interests of society, is animated by senti-
ments of right and justice, readily submits to the
authority of law, shares in the general happiness,
and holds aloof from visionary contemplations and
sterile reveries.
"The conjugal union," says Burdach, "engenders
the desire for children, for it is in itself, as it were,
a 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
ufather" and "mother," respectively, parties long
married express 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
207
How Marriage eaves from Debauch.
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 cir-
cular advocating the claims of one of those mechanical contrivances, to be
"worn" by women as a protection against conception. The best com
mentary 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 respect-
able druggist, and boldly 6igns it with his name and address in full. Hor-
rible and inconceivable cupidity! But, more horrible stOl, he relies upon
physicians to introduce it. We know of more than one "reputable " physi-
cian who supplies this invention of hell to his female patients!
208
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Regeneration of the Race.
vn.
WOMAN WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY.
HTO follow the progress of religion is to arrive at
^ the philosophy of history; for human events are
so interwoven with things in the religious order, that
the thread of the great changes which have trans-
pired 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 reason, be disregarded as utterly void
of enlightenment, and almost useless for future
guidance. Viewing things in the aggregate, the
particular is absorbed in the general, and the Hand
of God is shown above the things of this world,
ruling and governing and moulding with ineffable
wisdom and strength, and pushing forward toward
one mighty and mysterious end, the absolute per-
fection and regeneration of fallen humanity. So
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
209
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 army 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 pro-
gress of humanity. These facts are the fall of
Adam and the redemption. We must become down-
right infidels ere we venture to deny either the facts
themselves, or their relation to human history.
The first, a human fact, tends to degrade 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 con-
stantly find her maintaining her "right" to prom-
210
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Eve. The FirBt Marriage.
inent consideration 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
imagine the perfection of -those attributes, physical
and mental, which, to this day, man almost rever-
ences 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 instant—what wonder that
Adam exclaimed, "Bone of my bones, and flesh of
my flesh; therefore shall a man leave his father and
mother, and shall cleave unto his wife."
From this first marriage, which, in that instance
at least, was a sacrament, since God Himself per-
formed the ceremony, we learn the true nature of
matrimony. Unity, indissolubility, sanctity—all are
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
211
God's Benediction on Marriage.
there. Unity, because the man shall cleave only
unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. Indis-
solubility, for our Lord Himself, when asked by the
Pharisees, "Is it lawful for a man to put away his
wife for any cause?" replied, after repeating the
very words we have quoted: "What God hath
joined together let no man put asunder." 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 benedic-
tion, 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
sacraments, the foundation of society, the guarantee
of the happiness of woman, who becomes a misera-
ble 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 Lamech, who, by
212
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Matrimonial Condition of Noah and his Three Sons.
espousing two wives, Adah and Zillah, first attacked
the Divine unity of marriage. Theologians agree
in condemning most especially the perpetrator of
this act, and certainly there is a vast difference, 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 everywhere the fearful scourge
of his fall, and upon woman, above all, did the terri-
ble curse seem to linger with its most crushing
weight. Until the advent of Jesus Christ she
remained, among all nations, the mere instrument of
sensuality or of tyranny. Polygamy 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,
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
213
Who could claim recognition as Mrs. Jacob?
Leah and Bachel, not mentioning the two inferior
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, besides 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.* Eepudiation was
tolerated freely. A man could put away his wife
for the most trivial cause; nay, simply the declara-
tion, "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 regarded her husband. We do not
forget the beautiful _ exceptions that the history of
those remote times affords. We can not forget the
*Such as declaring her 11 unclean" daring a certain period, and requir-
ing her to announce the fact whenever the "custom of woman" was
upon her.
214
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Degradation of Woman among the Ancients.
maternal tenderness of Hagar, the filial devotion of
Jephthah's daughter, the virtue of Susan, nor the
queenly patriotism of Esther, but these are excep-
tional facts. They simply prove that Omnipotent
Providence did not permit female virtue to be utterly
extinguished, since he reserved a few such notable
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 com-
mencement 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, everywhere lent
himself a willing instrument for executing the
pitiless sentence against her. Among the Egyptians
so renowned for wisdom, polygamy was prohibited
only to the priests. Marriages between brothers
and sisters were freely allowed. In public proces-
sions the most gross and impure emblems were
ostentatiously paraded. Animals, the most lecherous,
were adored as divinities. Practices too indecent
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
215
Stones at the Altar are Bathed with Blood.
for recital, too horrible to believe possible, were
of constant and public occurrence. The
Phoenicians, the Armenians, the Babylonians,
the Assyrians, the Carthaginians, the Medes
and Persians, the Thracians, all had laws and cus-
toms 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 enslave-
ment, are things no less of to-day than of antiquity.
But that which, above all, proves to what abjection
woman, deprived of Christianity, can fall, how com-
pletely 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 Euphrates, from the shores of Asia Minor to
the depths of India, the stones of the altar are
bathed with human blood, the idols devour the
quivering flesh of infants offered in sacrifice. Go
to the caverns of the wilderness, and study the
habits of the tigress and the panther; observe the
most ferocious or the most stupid of beasts; in none
216
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Reason and Intellect not sufficient to Redeem Woman.
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 respective
species. To prove that a high state of civilization,
that reason and intellect, in their fullest develop-
ment, are not sufficient to redeem woman from abjec-
tion, servitude, and folly, we have but to review the
society of Greece and Eome, where intellect shone
with all the eclat of which it is capable. Adultery,
polygamy, 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 elegance, of culture, and of genius—crowd upon
the lips of him who would attempt the enumeration
of those giants of intellect! What a pompous
cortege' defiles under the porticos of Athens and
upon the shores of the Eurotas! Menelaus, Lycur-
gus, Solon, Leonidas, Socrates, Plato, Alexander—
great men, immortal by your glory, your wisdom
or your genius—come forth from your tombs and
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
217
Corinth. Lais. Aspasia. Nameless Crimea
tell us what you have accomplished. Sterile efforts
of genius, vain noises of renown, 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
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 Eepublic!
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
auspicious. Alas! woman here is but the voluptuous
courtesan — embellished, 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 Athenians has recorded
218
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Athene. Condition of Women in that Splendid City,
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 among
the Gentiles, that a man should have his father's
wife!" As we press onward, pause before this nar-
row 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
lias 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
219
Power of Phyrne, Aepaeia, and other Courtesans.
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 con-
sole themselves [sic) with such of his relations as
they should select.
Lais, Aspasia, Phryne, saw at their feet the great-
est men of Greece—Socrates, Alcibiades, Praxiteles,
Pericles. These women study philosophy at the
academy, pose themselves in the studio of the
sculptor, inspire the genius of orators! Eemarkable
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
immortalized by the painters of Sycion. Demos-
thenes—fiery tribune of the people—cast himself at
220
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Poor Human Nature left to Herself.
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 mon-
strous indecencies. That tribunal, so famed for its
impartial justice—that Areopagus, so holy that it
was claimed the very gods appeared in it!
But in all this wonderful Athens—while the
courtesans enjoyed such privileges and immunities
—the poor wives were confined at home, plunged in
ignorance, and chained in slavery. Occupied in
their Gynseceum—literally "woman-place"—with
the cares and labors peculiar to their sex, they
received no education, and in intelligence and cul-
ture were completely beneath their husbands, who
were themselves the most cultivated persons in the
world.
What a state of society—where courtesans were -
educated, 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
221
Absolute Authority of the Roman Pater Familias.
Sparta are all names of cities which recall the shame
of women. 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
wonderful empire, after having subdued all the
nations of the known world—destined by Provi-
dence to prepare the way for the grand Christian
revolution—surely, this astonishing nation, so chiv-
alrous 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 foundation of their proud city, conquest was
their leading idea. The Eoman 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 conquered all, he might dis-
222
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Mancipatio. Powers it Conferred.
pose of all, without reserve, without restriction.
Thus the head of the family, the pater familias, was
invested with absolute authority over all his posses-
sions. 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 condemn 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 captum, con-
quered by the hand—and the character of the thing
possessed was that of being in manu—under the
hand—of the possessor.
So, with the Eomans, the hand was the symbol of
power. He possessed whatever he took or made to
pass under his hand by means of formalities termed
mancipatio. Mancipatio—which conferred civilly
ownership of things or persons—gave to the posses-
sor a power equal to that which he would have had
if he had acquired it by conquest. Here, in a nut-
shell, lies the foundation of the whole Roman
"right," a brutal, material, and despotic right, but
calculated, in its very nature, to give immense power
to the State, by the concentration of authority, tend-
ing in all things toward unity. Long after the
establishment of Christianity this Roman right pre-
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
223
Conjugal Tyranny Carried to the Extreme.
served the impress of the brutal Quiritine power,
and it was, perhaps, to this strong and vigorous
institution that Eome 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,
"emancipate" her; that is, place her from under his
hand; in a word, he might turn her out of the family
in utter 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
224
SATAN* IN SOCIETY.
The Status of Woman in Rome for Three Centuries.
numerous instances of generosity in those "good
old timesfor example, Coriolanus, when banished,
extorted a promise from his wife to espouse a more
fortunate husband.
Such, for three centuries, was the stakes of woman
in ancient Borne—a being entirely secondary; use-
ful only because she gave children to the Eepublic,
and watched, indoors, over the welfare of the house-
hold. (We have, alas! some modern Quirites
among us, who can see no further use in the world
for woman than the old domestic tyrants in ques-
tion. Their numbers are fast diminishing, glory be
to God!) During all this period, however, there
seems to have existed a sort of rigid purity, no less
among men than among women. Ceaselessly occu-
pied in war, in agriculture, or in the forum, the
men of those days thought but little of amorous
intrigues. Those who attempted to indulge them-
selves 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. Noth-
ing less than the fall of a throne, and the exile of
the greatest king the Romans ever had, could avenge
SATAN IN SOCIETY, 225
Statement of Pere Lacordaire.
Lucrece; so the libertine had a "hard road to
travel" in those days. The law of the Twelve
Tables, though designed to remedy, only
aggravated the existing evils. From bad to
worse, the most frightful corruptions fer-
mented at length in that vast body, com-
posed of parts so heterogeneous, soiled with so
many crimes, sick with so many plagues. Crimes,
till then unknown in the history of nations, became
of common occurrence. What we have said of Eome
may be taken of the fair average type of man-
ners preceding the advent of our Lord. We find,
in the words of Pere Lacordaire, an eloquent French
divine, a resume of the history of woman outside of
Christianity: "Man has accumulated against his com-
panion all that he was capable of inventing of hard-
ships and privations. He has taken her captive ;be has
covered 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 pleasures of the mind; he has
226
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Commencement of the Story of Halgerda.
taken her in marriage under the forms of purchase
and sale; he has declared her incapable of inherit-
ance from her father or mother; incompetent to give
testimony; incapable of the guardianship 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
order,' say the statutes, 'that the life of the husband
shall be secured.'"
Did our limits permit, we should delight in repro-
ducing here some of the curious legends of antiquity,
which present the most striking pictures of the
manners of pagan nations, many of which attest the
nobleness of heart preserved by woman, 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 Halgerda; she was also called Langbrok,
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
227
Betrothed by her father without her Consent.
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
oyer to his father-in-law the price of the mundium.
[The mundium was the power of the head of the
family oyer its members, and when he transmitted his
power to the husband the latter paid the price of it. ]
Thus Thorwaldus bought Halgerda, and, the afiEair
terminated, he returned home.
"The next day Halgerda was thus accosted by her
father: * Thou art betrothed to Thorwaldus; I haye
received the price of the mundium?
"'1 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, 61 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?'
*4 After these words she withdrew, and, seeking her
228
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Murder of her Husband, Thorwaldus.
preceptor, Thiostolfus, a man of inflexible and sav-
age character, she related to him her grievance.
"4 Take courage,' said he to her, 4 thou shalt be
married 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.
tcHalgerda sat down before her dwelling with
bleeding face and wounded spirit. Her preceptor,
Thiostolfus, passed, and, seeing her in this state,
asked: 4 Who has treated thee thus?'
"4My husband; and thou, my preceptor, wast not
there to defend me.'
u 'At least I will avenge thee.'
"Some hours after Halgerda saw him returning,
holding before him an ax stained with blood.
"4 Thine ax is stained with blood,' said she, 4 what
hast thou done?'
44 4 1 have done that which will enable thee to
espouse another man.'
44 4 Thou say est, then, that Thorwaldus is dead?'
44 41 say it'
44 Without another word Thiostolfus departs and
seeks asylum with a relation of Halgerda, and she,
returning to her apartments and opening her casket,
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
229
The Father changes his mind. Halgerda consulted.
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?'
"' He is dead,'
"'How?'
"'By the hand of my preceptor, Thiostolfus.'
"' What is done, is done,' said the father.
"Two years Slapsed, and Glumus, a wealthy
inhabitant of a neighboring island, came to ask the
hand of Halgerda.
"' I ought to inform you/ says the father, 'that a
former marriage, which I imposed upon my daughter,
did not terminate very pleasantly.'
"'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
230
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Story of Halgerda concluded.
girdle, around which is entwined her long hair,
falling on each side of her breast; her head is grace-
fully 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
fee your pleasure.1
"11 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 propo-
sitions made on either side, 4 My father,' says
Halgerda, 'you have this time acted so generously
with me, that I shall accede to your wishes.'
"4 Let us, then, sign the contract,' says Hoskuldus,
4 my brother and I will call witnesses to our prom-
ises, but thou shalt be witness for thyself; thou
shalt promise 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
iniquitous law, in all its rigor, among the ancient
Franks and Germans.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
231
God extends His protecting Arm over the World. The Virgin Mother.
It was time that God Himself should extend the
protecting 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 regener-
ation of humanity. Tes! the angel of God descends
from heaven ta utter those words, which eternally
thereafter both the heavens and the earth shall
re-echo: Ave gratia plena, Dominus iecum> bene-
dicta tu in mulieribus. .....
Ideoque et quod nasceiur 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 fer-
vor of prophecy, which nineteen centuries have ful-
filled, 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 Eedeemer of the human race. The memory of
this promise had been preserved among all nations.
All Theogonies 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
232
(SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Advent of the Redeemer Gladdening all Faithful Hearts.
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 deess 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 miracu-
lous event. Thus did this primitive revelation traverse
all times and countries, following nations in their
distant migrations, and though more and obscured
by the shadows of idolatry, it remained, neverthe-
less, 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 Scriptural narrative of the birth of our Bedeemer,
should have been adduced as evidence of its fabu-
lous 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 prefigured and rehearsed the future.
Its poetry was full of prophecy; inspired voices
resounded upon its mountains; the entire people
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
233
Description of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
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
faithful 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. Never-
theless, obeying the decrees of Providence, they
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 val-
leys 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 Eaphael, a Corregio, or a Michael
Angelo might dream of, but could never attain. St
234
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
The Sublime Type of the Christian Woman.
Denis, the Areopagite, who had seen her, says:
"She was of a dazzling beauty, and that he should
have worshiped 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 manu-
scripts then extant, thus traces her portrait:
"In 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 acquiline and of irreproachable perfection,
and her 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 artisan, descended from a long line of kings,
was chosen, among many aspirants, to be the fortu-
nate possessor of this flower of the royal race. The
pious child passed then from the holy precincts
fvhere dwelt her young companions to the abode of
;he carpenter of Nazareth. Joseph was at least fifty
rears old when he espoused Mary. He was as a
ather to her, and respected her vow, as is proven by
ler remonstrance to the angelic salutation, '* How can
his be, since I know not man?"
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
235
The Voice says, ** My Kingdom is not of this World."
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 contributed 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 nourished a Bedeemer. She gave
to the nations an example of the most beautiful
maternal devotion, of the most magnificent grief
which history affords.
In a world abandoned to despotism and sensuality
—where the civil law was the supreme rule which
crushed every aspiration under its power—where
religion was of and under the State—where kings
and magistrates were the priests—where nothing
was more sacred than country, nothing higher than
force, nothing 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
236
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Force no longer the Supreme Law.
can do, there is a supreme, eternal, immutable Truth,
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
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
marriage. But yesterday the vile instrument of the
pleasures 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, imitator 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
237
Christianity Forbade Divorce as well as Polygamy.
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 holiness 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,
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 assailed, 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 icife 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 torture were so
roughly used against Christians. Nothing could
238
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Virginity no longer a Reproach, bat an Honor.
stay the transports of these daughters of the Savior
—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 veritable angels from heaven.
These creatures, whom antiquity had formally
declared too feeble in mind to testify as witnesses,
became witness 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 cloth-
ing was removed; they were cast naked into the
arena. At this spectacle, at the sight of these
young mothers, on whose breasts still lingered some
drops of milk, the people, hardened as they were,
touched with horror and with pity, ordered, by loud
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
239
Story of Perpetna and Felioitas.
cries, that their garments should be restored to thero.
They were taken behind the barrier, and some
minutes later Perpetua re-appeared in the circus,
covered with a floating robe. The cow sprang upon
her, and stretched her all bleeding upon the sand.
The young martyr quickly arose. For Vhat 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
victim to the beast, who dispatched them together."
Another: a young girl of sixteen smiled upon the
ruffian 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, "I 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 Him-
self, in words too plain to admit of cavil: "Who-
240
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Absolute and Divine Prohibition of Divorce.
soever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause
of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery;
and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, com-
mitteth 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 divorce which
breaks the sacred bonds; otherwise He would not
have said: 44 Whosoever shall marry her that is
divorced committeth adultery." To give this pass-
age another meaning is simply to be blinded by that
condition which finds only what it desires to find,
sees only what it pleases to see.
The greatest primitive authorities insist upon this
interpretation. 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 recon-
ciled to her husband; 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
241
Quotations from the Greatest Primitive Authorities.
another." Tertullian, in the second century, speak-
ing 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 tha 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 sep-
aration, and never of abrogation of the mar-
riage 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 vinculo (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 absurdity. For example: Mrs.
Smith complains of Smith, and the civil law gravely
decrees a divorce a vinculo as regards herself, but a
242
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Ambiguous Position of Mr. Smith. Brief Glance at the Chinese.
mensa et thoro as regards Smith. Mrs. Smith
becomes Mrs. Jones, but poor Smith can not marry;
"for," says the civil law, "you have one 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
thimble-rig, "Now you see it, and now you don't,"
the bewildered 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 proposition is demonstrable: wherever the
light of Christianity has not yet penetrated, the
condition of woman is not sensibly different from
that of bygone ages.
Let us briefly glance at that nation so proud of its
antiquity; that nation from which certain modern
philosophers 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 bar-
barians for the rest of us. Let us inquire into the
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
243
Chinese Women. Their Small Feet.
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 consequence she,is
subjected to humiliation and slavery. Polygamy
has always existed. One wife only is legitimate;
the others are inferior. The husband may repudiate
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 frightened!" 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
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 atten-
tion 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
244
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
A Chinese Barnnm could make a Profitable Investment. Japan,
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 mis-
fortune, and a Chinese gentleman considers as an
insult the question if he has any daughters. Infants
are numerously murdered and exposed, especially if
girls. Vehicles 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 them-
selves 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.
kShe lives in a sort of seraglio, where she receives
only the rare visits of her own relations. If the
husband wishes to be divorced he does not put her
away; he simply condemns her to a separate apart-
ment and marries another. For a breach of chastity
the husband has the privilege of killing her. The
Japanese are polygamists. 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 forbidden to rear
SATAN IN SOOIETT.
245
Burmese Empire, Hindoatan.
children. The crime of abortion, so fashionable in
our own country, is enforced by law upon all under
that age. In the Burmese Empire, where the women
are not shut up as in China and Japan, their man-
ners 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,"
4'lord," and sometimes even "my god." Their relig-
ious books declare positively that man is for
his wife a diviniiy, and that she needs no other
devotion than to be obedient and submissive to
him. When a husband dies, his wives, under pen-
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. Either 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
246
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
England Responsible for many of these Crimes.
of the spectators, and the victims, their heads
covered by a veil, are strangled with surprising
dexterity by men skilled in these horrible 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 sub-
jects. 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.
In Africa, from the Great Desert to the Cape of
Good Hope, from the coasts of Senegambia to those
of Zanzibar, 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
247
The Human Heart is the same Everywhere. Mohammedism.
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 civiliz-
ation, that their abasement seems more replusive.
In America the thing is not very different; the
human heart is the same everywhere; 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 inferiority 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
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 com-
248
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Effects on Mohammedan Women. Cancassian Women.
pletely annihilated. It would seem that the sensual-
ity of the Mohammedans has aimed to destroy the
last vestiges of her moral nature, leaving only the
automaton, the physical being, the passive instru-
ment of man's pleasure. Their word designating a
certain class of "wives" has the same root as
another word which signifies utensil. A Mohamme-
dan has the right to marry as many wives as he
pleases. The rich often have a considerable num-
ber. Surrounded, as they are, by all sorts of pre-
cautions, including vigilant and argus-eyed guardians,
the women are so corrupt that not only do they prac-
tice the most incredible immoralities among them-
selves, 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 trom the most beautiful type of the
human race. A girl of average beauty costs about
the same, a little less rather, than a horse—say
twenty to thirty dollars. Once arrived at the seraglio,
the young slave has to undergo a regime which must
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
249
Accumulation of Fat, a Sine Qua Non.
prove to her a veritable torture. She must abso-
lutely grow fat, under penalty of displeasing or
failing to please her husband. Tour 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, ske 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
society! 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, maternal, 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
more belongs. Every one shuns her. She moves
silently, sadly, and lonely amid those who treat her
as a slave, as a being without a soul, without intel-
250
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
A Mussulman a Human Brute.
ligence, incapable of loving, of feeling, or of suffer-
ing. "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 knelt by her baby to beg for him benedic-
tions from above; never directed his glances to
heaven; never taught his lips those sweet prayers of
childhood which ascend, with all their perfume of
innocence, to the throne of God; nor those boly
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 Christian-
ity and of all other systems of religion, is to reach
a curious 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 a modern Athens," where the same idol is
again erected, thewrougs of woman have culminated
in a state of things against which the women of a
whole nation are at this moment clamoring for
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
251
Parallel between Ancient and "Modern Athens."
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 revolting 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 decide 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 Louisville Courier-Journal, and thence
published in nearly every newspaper in the land,
throws down the gauntlet as follows:
Agency of the Mokmon Mission, )
% February 5, 1870. )
"I learn by telegram in your paper that the
United States Government proposes to abolish the
252
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Letter from Agent of Mormon Mission.
institutions of polygamy in all the States and Terri-
tories, and to raise an army of 25,000 men to
enforce its unrighteous enactment. Lincoln called
for 75,000 men to suppress the Eebellion, 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 Eebellion suppressed,
and yet keep a larger army and demand larger esti-
mates to preserve the peace than they thought
necessary to suppress the Eebellion. Tour 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 insti-
tution sanctioned by the patriarchal ages, wtth Solo-
mon, 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 ridiculous;
it does not assume 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 mingled jeers and desecrations.
It was regarded as the vagary of a madman. When
progressive intellects rallied around us, and Naiivod
arose in its beauty and loveliness, a thing of marvel,
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
253
He attacks some of the Magnates of the Land.
men guilty of incest and adultery arose in their
madness and drove us among the Indians, and
into the waste and desert place. We conquered
the inhospitalities of climate and unfruitfulness of
nature, and we erected in the wilderness temples of
beauty, and clothed the sterile fields 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, ana Rilpatriek.
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 conglomeration of
gambling hells; this protege of Wall street, with
Pisk, Jr., of the gpera-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-
ington City come; let all without the sin of polygamy
come, with rocks in their hands, and, with a corpo-
ral's guard of saints, we will defy them. I am a
254
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Rapid Growth and Increase of MonaioniBm.
missionary of the Mormon Church, and I know that
whereof I affirm. 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 Washing-
ton. I will say nothing of our revelation; that is
reserved for those who wish to investigate its claims.
Let Grant remember 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 mil-
itant, and progressive and defensive 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 prospective war. Tour
forts and arsenals are not threatened; your authority
is not subverted. Your rakes and profligates, 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
255
Practical and Theoretical Polygamists.
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 major-
ity of all your married men and women, at times,
are tired of monogamic life. All of the negroes
are practical and theoretical 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 Four-
ierism 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 hol-
low catacombs of morality without any solidity. The
Indians covering our plains, and remaining on the
reserves in Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, are polyga-
mists. East 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 stain 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 subdued. Mexico, with her chap-
arral, her mosquitoes, and her roving polygamic
hordes, are our natural allies. Now what can you
rely on?
256
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Downfall of Monogamy Predicted.
"The monogamic church? Not at all. The truly
religious 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 polygamic
China, and the cry from every district is, 'Come
over and help us labor;' and the cry is heard in a
million vales, and there is now a packing of house-
hold 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 Shakerism 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, monogamy has a non-militant
majority in the churches, perhaps numbering 500,000
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
257
A Militant Power second to none in the World.
fighting men, headed by Grant, Sickles, and Kil-
patrick—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 militant 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 suffrage 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
birth. Our children all receive the fostering care of
the State. The pagan mother of the Ganges dedicates
258
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Cheerful Picture of Mormon Cities compared with Others.
her child, and custom dedicates the surviving widow
to their gods. Monogamy consecrates its numerous
bastards to a secret death and burial, and devotes
too often the helpless maid and widow to prosti-
tution—and you call that religion. Go through our
cities and towns, and where will you find legalized
prostitution, destitution, child-murder, drunkenness,
and profanity among women, and heartless profligacy,
desertion, drunkenness, 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 Mormon 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.
Thad. Young Smith,
Secretary Mormon Missionary Board.'1''
Extravagant as seem the assertions of this Mr.
Smith, we behold in them the strength of an enemy,
who thus throws off the mask, and bids defiance to
the friends of God. But let a woman sound th^
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
259
Extract from Essay of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe.
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 re-action 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 know-
ledge to be its proper and desired antithesis. I
have read the Behavadgheeta and Mr. Emerson'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, easier
than not. My first rule will be, * Brahmins, beware
of intercourse with Pariahs!' The three hundred
incarnations of Yishnu, far more imposing in number
than the single incarnation of which the old theology
has made so much, shall be preached by me both as
260
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Barmn& of Widows a Matter of Economy,
precept and example. The Confucian moralities, as
illustrated by Calif ornian experience,sliall replace the
Decalogue. Mr. Emerson's crowning sentence, that
he who commits a crime hurts himself, will, of course,
suffice to convert a whole society of criminals and
reprobates. I will introduce the Joss into prisons,
and give the myth of the Celestial Empire a literal
interpretation. 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 excess of female population in
New England, and postpone the pressure of woman
suffrage. The burning of widows alone will save
the country no small outlay in pensions. Lastly,
since the Turkish ethics are coming so much into
favor, I should advise a more than Mormon applica-
tion of them in our midst. Co-operative housekeep-
ing 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 Christendom in order to accomplish this revolu-
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
261
Laughter sometimes Indicates Pathos too Deep for Tears.
tion. And if I may believe my friends of the Free
Beligious Association, the surest way to do this will
be to keep closely in their midst; for elsewhere,
between steamboats 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 sketched 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 Mil-
ton; 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 experi-
ence—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
262
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
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
vouchsafed to truth by Divine Providence, has tran-
spired 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 gov-
ernment which encourages its convocation, 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 resolu-
tions 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 second meeting, an emissary,
of the government declared the assembly prorogued.
A scattered remnant re-assembled, 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 committee
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
263
Infidelity can not Succeed without the Women.
of five assembled, when one of them positively
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 advocated by himself and the other three
conveyed the same idea in other words; in vain did
he protest that they all agreed in denouncing God5
but that they "should lose the women, without
whom they could never hope to succeed" if they
denounced God in terms—the gentleman obstinately
persisted in his refusal to have anything 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 *4 Anti-Council" or its mani-
festo. 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 Dark-
ness who would annihilate her? Shall she suffer one
jot or one title 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
264
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Reform only Possible through Christianity.
their faith by their sufferings, if need be by their
blood. And as, on the painful road to Calvary, they
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 station, by mere civil enact-
ments that they are to come; it is only by their
unswerving devotion to a pure and undefiled Chris-
tianity that the needed reforms shall be achieved.
• 4 ,
SATAN IN BOOIETY. 265
Physical Differences of the Sexes.
VIII.
PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGICAL COMPARISON OF
THE SEXES.
IT is not merely in the organs of generation that
Nature has placed the differences between the
sexes. She has deeply engraved them throughout
the entire organization. Woman is distinguished
from man under whatever aspect she is regarded.
Differences are manifested in the form, and are ap-
parent to the most superficial observer. The anato-
mist 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 astonish-
ing revelations, and he is reluctantly obliged to con-
fess 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
266
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Obvious Anatomical Difference.
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 movements, has directed its actions.
The most obvious anatomical differences are those
which relate to the external configuration. The rela-
tive 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 volum-
inous. The trunk of man resembles an inverted
cone, that of woman an upright one. 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 open-
ing of the glottis enlarges in the proportion of five
to ten; in woman, at the same period, it increases
only in the ratio of five to seyen. This accounts for
the difference in the voice, that of man being deep
and sonorous, while that of woman is soft and
melodious.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
267
Woman Stamped with Physical Subordination.
These anatomical peculiarities, no less than her
special and periodical function, and the very tenden-
cies 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 everywhere 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 inspection we find other and still more signifi-
cant differences. Thus, the brain of woman is rela-
tively 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 advan-
tage 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
therefore, in no way proceed from the influence of civ-
ilization. The cellular tissue is more abundant ip
woman, and it is this tissue which fills out the skin,
effaces the osseous projections, and affords these soft
♦Save in the oases of certain birds and insects.
268
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
She abounds in Cellular Tissue.
inflections and those graceful outlines which impart
to her comeliness, and attract our admiration. It
harmonizes the different parts of her body by insen-
sible curves, and influences the suppleness of her
movements by lubricating the organs of locomotion.
But this cellular tissue is regarded as the elementary
tissue of organized bodies, and its greater abundance
shows her to be less advanced in personal develop-
ment, and destined to provide 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, 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 forehead of woman is lower
and less capacious, the posterior region of the
cranium is larger. It is now known from the most
positive revelations of phrenology, that to this con-
formation belongs the greatest depth of feeling, and
of nurturing the affections."*
♦Historic philoeophique et medicale deia femme, par le docteur
MenviUe.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
269
Woman Lives Faster, and " Lives for Two."
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 predominance over that of the
brain, is the degree of relative inferiority through-
out the whole animal series. Woman generally
lives longer than man, although %he 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 existence 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 elements, and
works the longer and more painfully in their
elaboration. The region of the generative organs is
much more developed, and all its dimensions are
larger than in man. The influence of the reproduc-
tive sphere dominates her entire being. We can
270
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Greater Influence of the Keproductive Sphere.
scarcely exaggerate 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 whatever transpires in one region is
felt immediately in all the others. One would sup-
pose the genital organs to be the center of sensorial
life, to which the entire organism is, in a manner,
subordinated, so numerous are their nervous irradia-
tions. The ramifications of the "great sympathetic"
system of nerves establish a keen and intimate com-
munication between the womb and the brain, lungs,
heart, stomach, and even the breasts, the lips, and
the throat; so when this organ is diseased the
entire organism is troubled, and reciprocally, in seri-
ous derangements of other and distant parts, the
womb sympathizes profoundly. Hence the habit-
ual expression of women to designate the periodical
flow: 441 am unwell." In man, on the contrary,
sensation is limited by organic resistance no less
than by his will, which holds his nervous sys-
tem in subjection. In woman, sensation is like
the electric spark — it usurps and traverses the
organism, which * it rules and masters com-
pletely. All her parts are sympathetic, either by
continuity or contiguity of tissue; her very skin is
BATAN IN SOCIETY.
271
Woman Consecrated to Propagation.
most highly endowed with the power of spreading
and repeating in every part that which is felt at a
single point.
Her periodical function is designed to disembar-
rass her system of the excess of blood whenever
it is unemployed in generation. Its appearance
announces the period of puberty, and its definite ces-
sation marks the age when she is no longer apt for
conception. Its suspension occurs during preg-
nancy 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 asylum. She was observed to be weeping,
and, when asked the reason, replied, uMy chil-
dren 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
derives from plays which simulate household duties.
272
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Difference in the Advent of Puberty.
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 public life, such as the military art, religious
ceremonies, travels, equestrian exercises, etc.,
according to his individual 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 tempera-
ment: the texture of her organs does not lose all of
its original softness. The development which age
effects in all portions of the body never gives to them
the same degree of density that they acquire in man;
however, in proportion as the womanly qualities
become fixed, differences 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. Everywhere puberty
is relatively earlier than in man—has Nature more
to accomplish in the one than in the other? Does
the perfection of man cost more than that of woman?
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
273
Paternal Love not Natural.
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, foreign to man, and hitherto
foreign to herself. From this moment there is dis-
covered in her a new chain of physical and moral
relations, which constitutes 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.
Paternal love does noi 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-
stance of the brain has more consistence, more
♦Boussel, Systeme phisique et moral de la fexnme.
274 SATAN IN »jCf2IY*
Nervous Temperament /ommon in Women.
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 reflection. Every thing which occasions
violent emotions troubles and bewilders her. Man,
less sensitive, belongs more to himself; for sensi-
bility, while it multiplies 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 genius;
woman observes, and man reasons."
The nerves emanating from the spine are larger in
woman relatively to the size of the muscles. She
presents all the characteristics of the nervous tem-
perament, 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 follow 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
8ATAN IN SOCIETY.
275
Masculine Women and Effeminate Men.
men. But, as the feminine nature is exceedingly
impressionable, there are observed a host of super-
ficial differences arising from education, manners,
and customs, and from all the general causes which
affect the secondary qualities of beings. There is
now and then a woman who, in constitution and pro-
clivities, may be considered as 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, capable 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 advocate
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
276
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Contradictions of Female Character.
in good, she is also extreme in evil. She is inconstant
and changeable; she "will" and she "wont." 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 contra-
dictions and mysteries. Capable of the most heroic
actions, she does not shrink from the most atrocious
crimes. Jealousy 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 cour-
ageous. Moved by a resolute will, man compre-
hends danger, measures and faces it. Woman cal-
culates nothing; she sees the end and will attain it
at any price. If she be unskillf ully thwarted in her
imperious desires, her fickleness is changed to obsti-
nacy; you shall crush her sooner than reduce her.
Popular excitements, the terrors of superstition,
the intoxication of political fanaticism, are propa-
gated among women like a veritable conflagration.
They are more merciless, more bloodthirsty than
men—witness the frightful memories of the French
BATAN IN SOCIETY.
277
The Indeterminate adds a Charm.
Bevolution, and the 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. Artemesia and Luere-
tia are types without masculine analogues. Man is
absolutely incapable of love so disinterested and
ardent as that of Heloise.*
It is a woman, Magdalen, who personifies repent-
ance; another, Theresa, who personifies devotion;
another, Joan of Arc, who personifies political
enthusiasm. "Woman carries sentiments and pas-
sions to their utmost limits, precisely because of
the facility with which she yields to novel influ-
ences. There is something fugacious and inde-
terminate in her physical organization; something
intangible which adds to her means of seduction
by provoking the desires. The sentiment of mod-
esty, 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 unwillingness of
Heloise to be married, her preference to remain the mistress of Abelard,
and her denial of the marriage relation equally arose from purely disin-
terested love. She feared, 6imply, to injure his genius, to retard his devel-
opment, to extinguish "that brilliant torch which God had lighted for the
world." Hence her first letter: Si uxoris nomen sanctius ac validius
videret, duloius mihi semper extitet amicae vocabulum; ant 8i non indig-
neris, concubinae vel ecorti.
278
SATAN IN SOOIET^.
Women 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 lim-
iting 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 proportions preserves the charm of
her form, and although her organs lose their flexi-
bility, she is still graceful in her movements, and
carries a certain winning attractiveness even into old
age.
Atmospheric influences, temperature, and electric-
ity exert a far more powerful influence upon woman
than upon man. She is in more intimate relation
with Nature. Her instincts are stronger, while her
personal intelligence is less. She readily achieves
many things by instinct at which man arrives less
surely by reflection. Man is guided by calculation
and personal interest, woman by passion and feeling.
Man sees the truth, woman feels it. Ask advice from
a woman, you get a prompt "yes" or uno," but if
you force her to analyze the principles of her opinioHt
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
279
Woman Understands Individuals.
she may either ignore them, or give but very poor
ones, but the conclusion will be correct notwith-
standing. Little accustomed to the severe exercise
of logic, debarred by Nature from rigorous deduc-
tions 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. Female penetra-
tion is without a parallel in judging individuals; it
is worth but little in judging the race. A woman
comprehends admirably the men of her acquaintance,
she does not comprehend 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 inflections of voice, and
of gestures reveal to us a being who is self-con-
scious even to the most minute details of her life.
One would almost believe that a mirror invisible to
others, always reflected her to herself; but to the
"knowthyself," in itslarge,philosophicalsense,she is
280
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
She has the (renins of Charity.
an entire stranger. It ought to be thus, moreover, for
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,1' 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
revels 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 arising 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
281
She excels in Minute Works.
his own defense, woman possesses the suppleness
and dexterity requisite for minute works and
domestic details. She does not seize objects with as
much force, but she handles 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 feminine attributes, and without acquiring any
of the characteristics of manly beauty, they, one by
one, are divested of their own peculiar graces, and
fall into a condition of premature senility—recog-
nizable neither as men or women.
Woman measures less space in walking, and
accomplishes 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 organic texture, which
282
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Inferior in Metaphysics.
give them the advantage in operations 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-
ceives fewer rays of light she can see more closely.
Skillful to distinguish delicate shades and minute
differences, she has difficulty in estimating the pro-
portions of distant or voluminous objects. Her ear is
smaller, and the canal more constricted, but this ca-
nal is round rather than funnel-shaped; 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 de-
velopment 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 intel-
lect 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 extent and power, it is more sub-
tile and acute. Her vivacity, and the multiplicity of
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
283
In Tact, Finesse and Taste Superior to Man.
her sensations—probably also the conformation of
the anterior lobes of her brain—do not allow her to
appreciate exactly the relations of things, their
causes and effects. This accounts for her inferiori-
ty in the metaphysical sciences already alluded to.
She has difficulty in fixing her attention upon a sin-
gle 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
incontestably the superior of man.
We owe to woman none of the grand, immortal
master-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 painting and sculpture not an immortal picture
or statue claims a woman for its author. In music
not a symphony, not an opera, not even a sonata—
we speak of master-pieces—has been given us by
women. In dramatic 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
* If certain modern examples would seem to constitute exceptions, it must
be remembered that the Question of immortality is in abeyance.
284
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Women do not Originate.
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
of female education, though counting for something,
can not be the only nor even the principal reason.
In the study of music, for example, nothing has
hindered woman from attaining the highest develop-
ment of which she is capable. The theatrical pro-
fession 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 wan; 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 power-
ful and generative faculty which rests upon a knowl-
edge of human nature in the aggregate. But we
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
285
Women Superior in Conversation.
have already shown that the faculties of which
genius is composed are precisely those in which
women are deficient by nature. They may, there-
fore, prove themselves ingenious, touching, and
even eloquent in the most elevated 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
success. Their excitability being more keen, and
their individuality less pronounced, they receive
impressions more readily, and betray them more
promptly and faithfully. 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, flexible,
and suppliant; more appropriate to the different
intonations of song. That of man, more grave and
prolonged, is better adapted to public discussions
and command. It has been already shown that his
286
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Woman's Curiosity. Love of God.
vocal organs are firmer and more developed.
The influence of the accent, the gestures, the
looks, no less than the sentiments and feelings,
and the words which these excite, and by which they
are in turn excited, make up the charm of conver-
sation. Epistolary 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
necessity for varied emotions. * Man searches labori-
ously every thing which can enlarge the sphere of
his intelligence; 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 sensibly convinced
of the idea of God. For man, God is some thing;
for woman, He is some One. Man discusses Him,
tries to explain Him, imagines Him, alas! sometimes
creates Him; woman loves Him.
*It is related of an illustrious professor, that, having to treat a very deli-
cate subject, he notified the w»men 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 than a hundred.
SATAN Itf SaOIET*.
Women can ** Live upon Air/'
The respiratory apparatus of woman is more per-
fect 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 conservator of the race, but the deposi-
tary 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 celestial and mysterious
aliment. On this principle many strange phenomena
may be explained. It is often remarked 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?"
Frenchmen have something of this type. It has been
said: "Give a Frenchman 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."*
*8&e on this subject, the writings of Mons. Serres.
288
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Intelligence not Genius. Qualities of Heart.
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 approval 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 considered 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 u heart," the domestic and social
qualities, such as filial, fraternal, conjugal, and
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
289
Filial Love contrasted.
maternal affection, but above all, of Love. The joys
which spring froiii the association of father and son
pertain more to hope than to reality, to the future
rather than to the present. The daughter, only, can
complete them, and the charm which she gives to
the household, despite her present ungracious
position, foreshadows 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 returns in the evening,
bowed with fatigue, saddened with pre-oecupations;
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 suddenly
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
necessities 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
290
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
The Cordelias of Life.
stranger, formed by another, and seeking under
your roof only the pleasures 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
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 isolation, 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 are less frequent, his
words are more brief; a man does not know how to
console. Your daughter, on the contrary, be she
maiden, wife, or widow, establishes herself by your
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
291
Filial Love. Illustrative Anecdote.
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
encountered one of these Cordelias kneeling before
a father whose reason totters or whose body decays?
Ah! then the daughter becomes the mother, and
those tender and caressing intonations consecrated
to children—those words which, it would seem, 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 gentlemanly 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
292
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Emancipate the Daughter.
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, fresh,
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 insurmountable 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 recognize 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 fulfil in the
life of the family! These shackles are: insufficiency
of education for the rich girl; insufficiency of salary
for the poor girl; exclusion from most of the pro-
fessions; inferiority 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 material and moral life of her parents,
SATAN IS SOCIETY.
293
Conjugal Love ha» no Heroes.
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
is so great a difference in the sexes. We find equally
charming models in brother and sister, only there is
a sexuality in its method of manifestation. According
as one or the other has the advantage of years, the
role 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, and, when discovered,vainly impor-
ing the emperor's clemency for her husband, and
dying a voluntary martyr 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 passion, it is frequently
revived by the husband's danger. Unfaithful wives
will often hasten to the sick-beds of their husbands,
spend their days and nights there, neglecting those
whom they love, but who are in health, for those
they ijlo longer love, but who are ill. A man will
294
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
"I am Yours." She is Mine."
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—
fraternal, conjugal, filial—that of the mother for
her children is marked by a character so personal
that it has everywhere consecrated to it a specific
term. Thus, in all languages, we find maternal as
opposed to paternal 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
coldly defines it, or, as Shakspeare hath it,
** It is to be all made of sighs and tears;
It is to be aB 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, aU observance"—
of this love, a word shows the enormous difference
between that of woman and that of man. The one
says, "I am yours"; the other, "She is mine." There
is all the difference between giving and receiving.
If we analyze our masculine love severely, we find
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
295
Love may regenerate Woman, but not Man.
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 spec-
ulator remain such in becoming lovers. It is at the
side of the loved one that they lament their defeats
or boast of their triumphs. To quote Byron,
"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart—
'Tis 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 recov-
ered 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 cor-
rupt 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 flat-
ters his vanity, he will divide his favors. A woman
who loves would recoil with horror from such
a proposal, even from a hero or a sovereign.*
* " 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 ffeloise to Abelard,
296
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Women as Nurses. Delicacy.
History cites more than one who has delivered
herself to the object of her hatred to rescue
the object of her love, and statistics have shown
that, of twenty young girls convicted of theft, nine-
teen steal for the benefit of a lover! In woman's
love there is an imperious requirement of ideality,
an almost constant subordination of the physical 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 sev-
eral 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 sublime tenderness and deli-
cacy that man can never imitate.
Madame de Chantal, about to become a mother,
saw her husband, whom she devotedly loved, mor-
tally 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.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
297
Anecdote. Intellect and Heart.
"A poor working girl was taken to a hospital on
account of a paralysis o£ the larynx, which deprived
her of speech. Her suffering, which was insupport-
able, 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 companions 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 preserver.' " *
A woman only could have acted thus, for to her
belc gs the empire of the heart. But which weighs
most in the balance, the intellect or the heart? Which
does most for the perfection and the happiness of
* Histoire Morale des Femmes.
298
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Genius and Charity. Ineradicable Differences.
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,
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 compari-
son with that immutable and adorable quality which
has neither beginning nor end, and which, alone,
really brings ns nearer to God—charity? Genius
may disappear 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 physio-
logical 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 foundations of the social order, they must
blame, not us, but Nature.* We are in this ut the
*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 culture, who publicly
denied that man furnishes any such thing!
SATAN IN SOCIETS.
299
Equality of the Sexes.
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 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 result-
ing from our historical examination, namely, that the
sexes are equal—equal, but different. The qualities
of the one are necessary to supplement, nay, to com-
plete, 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 decreed 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 rela-
tion 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.
Each admires and seeks that in which he is deficient,
and which is necessary to perfection. Neither has a
300
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
The Intellect and the Heart.
purely isolated and individual existence; force must
unite itself with weakness, weakness must lean upon
force. The intellect and the heart have the largest
share in the normal union of the sexes.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
301
The Woman inspires and preserves the Man.
IX.
WHAT CAN WOMAN DO IN THE WORLD.
I FTEB what has been said in the foregoing
-£X 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 substi-
tution of his personal interests for those ef the
nation. Calm and dispassionate judge, she has
uttered the cry of alarm at the first sign of danger,
and no sophistry can deceive her, for she feels rather
than reasons. He may adduce thousands of argu-
ments, may even prove to her the justice of his
determination. She is adamant! Her heart tells

302
SATAN IN SOCIETY^
Woman's Position in the Early Christian Ages.
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 inspirations of some
quiet little lady who doubles her husband'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.
803
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 powerful allies and co-workers in the cause of
Christianity. St. Jerome addressed to women one-
half of his theological letters, and three-fourths of
his treatises relate to female education. After such
proofs of courage, devotion, 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 marvelous successes in lit-
erature, art, and science.
In the fourth century Paula, Marcella, Melania,
and Eustochium surpassed all other Eoman ladies
in riches, birth, and the endowments of mind. In
the fifth century Elpis, wife of Boetius, a woman of
great learning, wit, and beauty, composed hymns
adopted in the Eoman Liturgy. In the sixth century
Kadegundes, 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 Fortunatus, one of the last of the
Roman poets, the literary education of her nuns,
304
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Learned Women in the Seventh and Eight Centuries.
who soon excelled their master 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 North-
umberland 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 century the beautiful Lioba was
declared by Boniface, Bishop of Mentz, to possess
solid learning—erudUionis sapientia—and it is said
that bishops often sought her counsel.
"It is certain," says the Count de Montalembert,
"from numerous and trustworthy testimonies, that
literary studies were cultivated in the seventh
and eighth centuries, in the women's monas-
teries in England, with no less care and perse-
verance 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
305
Examples from the Ninth and Tenth Centuries.
to suit the taste of the age, but, above all, to
read and study holy books, the fathers of the
church, and even classical works. All, or almost
all, knew Latin. Convent corresponded with con-
vent in that language. Some were enthusiastic for
poetry and grammar, and all thai was then adorned
with the name of science. Others devoted them-
selves 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, allegorical, or mystic inter-
pretations for the most obscure texts."
In the ninth century Ebba governed, with great
wisdom and learning, the monastery of Coldingham,
in Ireland, comprising two immense and separate
establishments 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 exam-
ple 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 Ger-
306
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.
many, displayed great learning in the 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 subjects, and the ivonderful ease and ivisdom
with which she discharged every duty of the regal
authority, showing her most extensive genius, to
the astonishment 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 Eodhia of Cordova, a Moorish-Span-
iard, freedwoman of King Abdelrahman. She was
the author of several volumes on rhetoric. Also
Sophia of Hispali, celebrated jor her poetry and
oratory. She had a sister Maria, also a poet and a
very learned lady. In the twelfth century Hilde-
gardis of Germany was the author of several books
of scientific prophecy, of numerous letters to sover-
eigns and pontiffs, of a poem on medicine, and a book
of Latin poems. In the thirteenth century Isabella
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
307
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.
of France, daughter of Louis VIII, was early
celebrated for her beauty, learning, and piety.
She was specially distinguished for her proficiency in
Latin.
In the fourteenth century Catherine of Siennp
wrote several books, consisting of letters, poems, and
devotional pieces. A pestilence laying waste the
country in 1374, "Catherine devoted herself to serve
the infected." She was commissioned by the civil
authorities of Florence to act as their mediatrix in
the affair with Pope Gregory XI, and was received
by the Pope and cardinals with "great marks of dis-
tinction." So great was her influence that she
induced the Pope to re-establish the pontifical seat
at Eome, 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
rigidness of disposition which had driven the world
from him, and still kept a very considerable part of
Christendom from acknowledging him;" and, what
is better still, "the Pope listened to her and followed
her directions!"
In the fifteenth century Catherine of Bologna was
308
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
The Sixteenth Century.;
a celebrated miniature painter, and "wrote learned
treatises." She is also saicf to have brought musical
instruments to perfection, and the invention of the
violin has been attributed to her.
The sixteenth century was prolific of learned
women. Mary I, Queen of England, was a wonder-
fully learned woman, proficient in Latin, and, withal,
a strong advocate of "woman's rights," which she
carried to practical application by making Lady
Berkley a justice of the peace in Gloucestershire,
and Lady Eous 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 Hun-
gary, 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." Elizabeth
Legge commanded the Latin, French, Spanish, and
Irish tongues, and was, withal, a poet, whose fondness
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
309
The Seventeenth Century.
for study and midnight reading cost her her eye-sight.
Nor must we omit Theresa of Spain, a pious and
learned virgin, foundress of "Barefooted Carme-
lites," and Mary, Queen of Scots, the most remark- *
able 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, Span-
ish, and Italian.*
In the seventeenth century Helena Lucretia Oor-
naro, doctor in theology at Padua, was also admitted
to the university at Borne, f Juliana Morella pub-
licly maintained theses in philosophy, and was
"profoundly skilled in philosophy, divinity, music,
jurisprudence, and philology." Lucrezia Marinelli
was learned in church history, understood and prac-
ticed the art of sculpture, was skilled in music, and,
besides, left many literary productions. Mademoi-
* 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 poena, desidero te;
Languendo, gemendo, et genu-flectendo
Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me!"
t Mrs. Hale is mistaken in supposing her '* perhaps the first lady who was
made a doctor." The same prodigy (if it be a prodigy!) had been witnessed
in the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. See Essai
sur le caractHe, les mo&ursy et Vesprit dea Femmes% by Thomas,
310
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
The Eighteenth Century.
selle de Gournay, friend and companion of Mon-
taigne, was an authoress of great distinction, 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
studies, 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
madv\ a most elegant extemporaneous reply in the
same language." Married, subsequently, it is said
"she shone as a wife and mother with admir-
able domestic qualities, equaling her scholastic
ones." She was elected by the Senate, professor
* 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.
311
History proves Woman* s Intellectuality,
in the university. Elizabeth Carter, of whom
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, million-
aire, politician, conversationalist, but, above all,
authoress, were produced by the last century, though
they figured also in the present. Mademoiselle
Lezardiere wrote a work considered by M. Guizot
"the most instructive that is extant on ancient
Eoman law,"
Thus we see that, for a period of more than six
centuries, women celebrated no less for their learn-
ing and piety than for their charms of person and
manners, attended the universities and wrested
honors from the stubborn competition of men, main-
tained theses in public, filled chairs of philosophy
and law, harangued before kings and pontiffs, wrote
in Latin and Greek, understood 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 new enjoy
312
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Why not Enfranchisement and Eligibility?
distinction as writers, linguists, poets, physicians,
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 com-
petitors for all occupations 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 role, then,
shall be opened to women, which shall afford employ-
ment 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
man still, to a considerable extent, condemns her?
*Mrs. Sarah J. Hale gives the names of more than one hundred and
twenty-five living women of distinction, exclusive of missionaries. The
number is probably now more than trebled. From the work of Mrs. Hale,
itself a monument of wonderful research, learning, 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. 1851. By Sarah Josepha Hale. Harper & Brothers.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
313
Ample Education demanded.
Certain domestic offices, and the greater portion of
public offices, require masculine qualities. To confide
these to women would be to degrade them and con-
sign them to a forced inferiority. But there are
many employments 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 women. 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 restric-
tions should be laid upon woman in the matter of
literary education. No distinctions of sex should
enter here, but the opportunities and advantages
should be equal. This is simply justice to one 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 so
much, at least. Then, if the father of the family
314 SATAN IN SOCIETY.
The Guardianship of Orphans.
dies, tlie 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. Her's
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. Exigencies
of business, and too often mere caprice, take them
from the post of duty, and the courts are frequently
compelled 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 4 4 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.
315
Men and Women contrasted as Guardians.
all right." Preoccupied and absorbed by outside
matters, men have neither the leisure nor the incli-
nation to embrace these adoptive paternities with
anything like enthusiasm and real devotion. The
best of them—those who bring conscience into the
affair—confine themselvesmainly to the merebusiness
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 qualities 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 management of private
business, their cordial vigilance, their spirit of detail,
their knowledge of children, their appreciation of
moral and religious requirements, their tenderness
and devotion, will establish between women and their
wards, a veritable family circle.
Much fine writing has been expended upon the
question: What can woman do for her support and
that of those dependent on her in the great bread-
316
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Necessity of Work for All.
and-butter struggle of life? And still the problem
remains—vexata 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, protected, and
screened from the rude gaze of the multitude. 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 herbody,butitis all overturned by the simple
fact: '' Woman lives in the ivorld.'' Wealth may some-
times 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-quar-
ters of the life of woman claims as a benefit, or exacts
as a necessity, obedience to the sovereign law of
WOKK. Work re-animates the sinking heart, purifies
and fills the void of existence. God, in creating work,
has compensated humanity for the rough trials to
SATAH IN SOCIETY.
317
Develop the Natural Aptitudes.
which it is subjected. Work assuages the deepest sor-
rows, 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 com-
bination 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 multiply and exalt its sources
of development. Rich and poor, high and low, for
all, work is life and salvation. The age of the
passions and pleasures having vanished, what
remains to most of our women save to struggle
against wrinkles? Aliment must be supplied 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 appli-
cation, or, at least, be ready for practical use.*
Every young girl should have opportunities
afforded her for developing whatever may seem to
♦See Histoire Morale des Femmes% by Ernest Legouve.
318
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Professions should be Studied by Opulent Women.
be within her peculiar and individual tastes and
aptitudes, whether in 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 support and that of others
dependent on her were to be derived from it In
our country, wrhere fortune is so capricious, and
where 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 thai she ivill be,
her former prosperity will but add to the evils of her
situation. We know a woman who^ while on her
wedding tour, twenty years ago, was seized with
an irresistible feeling of curiosity to know the pro-
cess 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
319
The Wife should keep pace with the Husband.
five sovereigns which the man demanded as the price
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 character of the education of most
young ladies. Afford them the requisite opportuni-
ties, 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 serv-
ants, and her house, she should not neglect those
studies and accomplishments which, if her educa-
tion has been conducted 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 so
essential to her high domestic vocation, but she will
keep pace with the intellectual growth of her hus-
band, whom she will constantly surprise with fresh
and varied virtues. How often does it not happen
320
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Bights of Women to Fair Competition.
that a man rises, by his talents and his application,
far beyond the sphere in which he started, but
whose wife, fitting companion for his days of
drudgery and humble surroundings, remains chained
to the condition of former years—a willing slave in
the background, 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 adornments 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
imagined. We know many "ladies" whose ward-
robes are small fortunes, who drive in superb equip-
ages, and whose vulgarity is beyond description.*
The obvious rights of women in relation to busi-
ness and professional life are:
* 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.
321
Occupations peculiarly adapted to Women. Women as Physicians.
1. Access to all occupations and professions in
the measure of their capacity.
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 occupations is against Nature, justice, and
humanity. But, independently of these employ-
ments, 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 con.
322
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Why Women are naturally adapted to Medical Practice.
duct certain departments of mercantile life, either as
principals or employes. If any doubts yet remain,
they are rapidly 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
success 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 conjectural 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 each case
constitutes a separate and independent studyc 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
323
Women as Physicians continued.
case of disease. The remedies which will relieve
one may injure another. Woman, with her marvel-
ous knowledge of the individual, is peculiarly fitted
to cope with this mysterious enemy. Part of the
science of the physician is the knowledge of the
temperament, 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 conquer 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 requirements!
We can not admit the validity of the common
arguments against woman doctors. Their intelligence
surpasses 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 infirmities, since none have more of this
virtue than those who have devoted their entire life-
324
SATAN IN SOCIETY,
Success of Women in Literature.;
time to nursing the sick* But the most shallow
and contemptible objection is on the score of mod-
esty. Suppose there were any thing in this (which
we utterly deny,) whether it were better that an
occasional woman should have her modesty 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 per-
petual 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 monopoly 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
conclusively demonstrated. They have only to "go
in training," and to circumscribe their efforts within
*Who would dare to charge Florence Nightingale with want of delicacy f
SATAN IN SOOIETX
325
Origin of Female Teachers.
the limits of their peculiar talents, and so escape
the ridicule which still attach es to the 4 'blue-stocking.''
4. The profession of teaching. This occupation
belongs to woman, by right of vocation and of con-
quest. We mean the exclusive right of teaching
children, and at least equal rights in teaching
adolescents. Whole volumes 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 establish-
ments, 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
nothing less than a revolution. They comprehended
this fact, for they said: 44 The regeneration of this
corrupt world must be accomplished by children.
Children will reform the familien; families will
reform the provinces; provinces will reform the
326
SATAN IN S0CIET7.
The Establishment of "Ursalines."
world." New in its objects, 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
"Ursulines," of France, purchased a house in the
Faubourg St. Jacques, where she installed her
"sisters" with two hundred day scholars. She hired
apartments contiguous 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 neither by birth
nor position. Other things being equal, she selected
as teachers those of the humblest origin. Her
character corresponded with her conduct. Cheerful
and gay, she was fond of life, and acknowledged it.
"It is only the miserable and despondent," said she,
"who hold in horror that which is a gift from God.9'
When she died, her "sisters," by a touching custom,
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
327
Foundation of "Ursulines" at Clermont and Dijon.
continued for a whole year to set her usual place at
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 nei-
ther 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 Sain-
tonge, 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 consultation of four doctors that "to teach
women is not the work of the devil." He shortly
withdrew his permission, 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 constituted her entire fund,
hired a house, and, with five young girls who had
328
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Anecdote of Francoise de Saintonge.
joined her, repaired thither on Christmas at mid-
night. 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. Preceding them was a girl of their
own age, magnificently attired, and bearing upon
her shoulders a mantle sewn with pearls and dia-
monds. At the head of this cortege 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
329
Women as Professors.
magnificent establishment—purchased by the Ursu-
lines 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
education of catechisms and litanies, it is true, but
the seed was planted, the principle was created, and
the world beheld two novel spectacles—female teach-
ers and female pupils.
What, then, shall poor girls do? They can teach
—not as subordinates merely, but as principals, as
professors. 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 posi-
tions. Competition has doubtless something to do
with the low salaries, but reform will come only with
"mixed" boards of education.
Paris alone contained, in 1856, more than three
thousand female professors of music, and perhaps as
many professors of languages. We know many instan-
ces in our own country of invalid parents and younger
brothers and sisters maintained in comfort by the
330
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Reach the Intellect through the Heart.
exertions of a daughter gifted with musical talents,
and educated to the capacity of teaching. We know
a gentleman, himself a college prof essor, -whose com-
fortable 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 pro-
fession, 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.
Intelligence of children, like that of women, is read-
ily reached through their hearts. Whatever inter-
ests 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
^tudy into an ungracious task and a pretext for pun-
ishment. Trust an enlightened woman to find the
way to the brains of children through their hearts!
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
331
Effects of Premature Learning.
In the education of women the dead languages have
been pretty generally ignored, and for the reason—a
stupid calumny!—that their intellects are inade-
quate to the severe mental labor involved in clas-
sical studies; yet, by a most singular inconsistency,
boys of twelve or thirteen are presumed to compre-
hend the poems of Virgil and Homer! Alas! that
which they comprehend only too well is the obscenity
and beastly immorality, while they can not compre-
hend the poetic genius by which alone these inde-
cencies are rendered endurable. And so with clas-
sic history. Before being fairly instructed in mod-
ern history—especially of their own country—and
the principles which Christianity has impressed
upon human governments, the merest children are
familiarized with the faith of Plutarch and the laws
of Lycurgus—monuments of immorality and degra-
dation—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.
Prematurely 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
332
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Accordance of Tasks and Tastes.
Milton ox Pope—a disgust which time alone can
change to love? We believe that woman is destined
to revolutionize the whole system of popular instruc-
tion 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 literature,
properly speaking, does not exist. Therefore rudi-
ments should be taught, but neither verse nor poetip
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
*We have recommended, in Chapter II, that mnsic should be commenced
early, and made a 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.
333
Ambition of Fathers and Intuition of Mothers.
circumstance,, so often observed, 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 intellectual 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 physician, 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 will say to
you: ''You must talk with his father;" and 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
334
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Let Women be Eligible as Members of "School Boards."
his strength in college. He laid his hard-earned
prizes at his father's feet, but a violent inflammation
of the brain left him little better than an imbecile.
All this time the dear, good, sensible mother was
interceding and imploring rest for her boy, but, alas,
in vain! Let woman be liberally represented in our
"Boards of Education," and we shall have an edu-
cational system perfected 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 intellectual 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 hearing, 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:
*Mrs. Emma Willard, distinguished as a successful teacher, author, and
lecturer. The celebrated ocean hymn, "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,"
was composed by her. She is also the author of an ingenious " Treatise on
the Motive Powers which produce the Circulation of the Blood."
8ATAN IN SOCIETY.
335
Philosophy of Teaching already hinted by a Woman.
44 In searching for the fundamental principles of the
science of teaching I find a few axioms as indisputa-
ble 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 improvement. What is the first rule to
guide us in making the best use of time? It 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 hundred 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.* .....
Tou are God's ministers to enforce His laws, and
must do your duty. Be thus mindful in all sincerity,
♦Where are the bigoted School Boards?
336
SATAN IN SOOIETt.
Sound Advice from a Woman.
judge correctly, adopt no subterfuge—pretend not
to think the child is better than he is, but deal plainly
and truly, though lovingly, with hira; then his moral
appreciation will go with you, though it should be
against himself, and evefi if circumstances require
you to punish him. The voice of conscience residing
in his heart is as the voice of God, and if you inva-
riably interpret that voice with correctness and truth
the child will submit, and obey you naturally and
affectionately.
"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 use-
ful and ornamental arts find their first principles,
and great skill is required of the teacher in assign-
ing to each pupil an order of studies suitable to his
age, and then selecting such books and modes
if teaching as shall make a little time go far."
The whole philosophy of teaching is inclosed in
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
337
Another Extract from the same Source.
these few 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 following 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 mat-
ter how much wealth or how many luxuries you can
command, there is no enjoyment without health. To
an aching head, what is a downy pillow with silken
curtains floating above? What is the cushioned
landau and the gardened landscape to her whose dis-
ordered lungs can no longer receive the inspirations
of an ordinary atmosphere? And what are books,
music, and paintings to her whose nervous suffer-
ings 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 gen-
erous hearts and marriage sanction the bond?
Would you be a blessing to such a one? Then now
338
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Drawing and Painting taught by Women.
take care of your health. Or, if you hesitate, let
imagination go still further. Fancy yourself feeble
as with untimely age, clad in vestments of sorrow,
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 susceptible of receiving
a knowledge of the rudiments—probably of tolera-
ble proficiency in the essentials of execution. There
is scarcely any knowledge taught in the schools
more sure to find scope for its practical applica*
tion in after-life than this. Every one who has not
received more or less instruction in drawing can
appreciate most feelingly the force of our remark.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
339
A Woman pleads for her Art.
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 Christian 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,
perseverance, and patience to succeed where men
would necessarily fail. We extract the following
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 for drawing;' if she had, or could even be
♦What were the lectures of the eminent Agassiz without this accomplish
mentl
340
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
A Woman's Plea continued.
supposed to have, the mother wished her to com-
mence her lessons immediately. 41 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 cultivated 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 conscience, I replied: 'Tour little
girl has two very intelligent 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 vublime—i.e., womanly!
Satan in society,
341
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 ar6 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 draw-
ing.' A light seemed to break over the mind of my
guest, and certainly a very brilliant 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 special
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
342
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
A Woman's Plea for her Art continued.
hand, and also ideas to express through this writ-
ten 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, impres-
sions, 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 drafts-
man's rule? If you were an architect you might
rule all your straight lines, or if you were repre-
senting 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
343
A Woman's Plea for her Art continued.
should your little girl be expected to draw
them?' I well understood the gleam of happy
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 her-
self and her needless deprivation. 4 Then you really
believe that every one can learn to draw?' 4Every
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 univer-
sally 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 peculiarities of city and country
life, or those forms, animate and inanimate, which
mark the differences of climates, countries, and ele-
ments. Tour 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 dwell-
ing itself, the outlines of the hills and mountains
344
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
A Woman's Plea for her Art continued.
which charm her young imagination, or those flowers
and shells which rouse her enthusiastic delight. She
may even catch the beauties of the landscape through
which she travels, the faces and figures of her com-
panions, 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 letters 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 pen-
cil as well as her pen, and yet, Queen Victoria never
made any pretensions 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 trans-
ferring to their books the beautiful scene before them.
Some weeks after this sketch was made Miss Clarke
SATAN IS SOCIETY.
345
A Woman's Plea for ber Art continued.
and the two girls met and were mutually entertained
by looking over each other's sketches, when they
found, to their surprise, and certainly great glee,
that they had been as busy that- morning in securing
a picture 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 coursey
be simply ridiculous. One might as well say that
the child will learn to write letters 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 literature.
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
346
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
A Woman's Plea continned.
he has spent a summer by the sea-shore; the waving
crest of a pine, the ragged outline of yonder crag,
or that grand mountain peak 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 language 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 it has at least one woman high on
the list of teachers. We have received 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.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
347
Letter to the Author from a Woman.
From my own knowledge and experience I can speak
on this subject. When my husband was principal of a
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 ele-
ment of the straight line, first drawn in its various
positions, then in combinations of two, three, and
four, these exercises succeeded by simple combina-
tions of angles, first limited, then unlimited in num-
ber, 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 simple, 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 unfortun-
ate. 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 hus-
348
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Letter continued.
band lecture, and was interested. She had no won-
derful talent, but wonderful and unceasing perse-
verance, and in less than a year she took a situation
as designer in the calico print mills at Lowell, Mas-
sachusetts. 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 beautiful 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 faith-
fulness. She, too, was not particularly 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
bhe present, the rush of emotions is almost
oaore than I can endure. These memories
recall such contrasts. Our home was bo beau-
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
349
Teachers of Oratory and Elocution. Dentists,
tiful and happy, and about once a month
we had receptions at our house for iny hus-
band's pupils—between eighty and a hundred—
with their friends, a talk of art, literature, and much
else that was interesting to 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 elocu-
tion, for which, indeed, their natural qualities" of
voice should peculiarly recommend them.
It 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 quali-
fications. We should hear less of the brutality of
dentists, the sympathetic nature of women being
considered. The best dentists now seek the co-opera-
350
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Lecturers, Editors, Librarians, Sculptors.
tion of competent physicians and surgeons whenever
operations demanding the use of chloroform or
involving extraordinary judgment are required, while
the use of ingenious 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 everywhere
successful. At first the novelty, and afterward real
interest, have generally 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 women lecturers for
its course. As editors and librarians women have
clearly established their claims to equality, if not to
absolute superiority. As sculptors there are already
several who have achieved both fame and fortune.*
*Ednionia Lewis, a colored sculptress not yet twenty-five years old, whose
6tudio at Rome is sought by the cultivated and wealthy, and whose works
command almost fabulous prices, furnishes a remarkable instance of per-
severance, not only against disadvantages of sex, but the still greater obsta-
cles 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
friendless. 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
IS SOCIETY.
351
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
profession 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
themselves 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 understood), then have women an equal
chance for distinction. If, as one of them recently
assured us, they "feel the call," we do not see why
they should not be allowed to answer—provided they
can find societies willing to employ them. We
it was made of," and, being informed, sought the studio of Mr.
Brackett, from whom she obtained some clay, some modeling tools, and
"a baby's foot." In about three weeks she returned with a tolerable repro-
duction of the foot, which the artist commended, 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,41 Hagar," is valued at six thousand dollars, and has earned
a handsome revenue by its exhibition.
352
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Public Officers.
candidly admit, however, that in our estimation the
sacerdotal office is essentially virile.
Under v/hat may be termed public offices there is
a long series which women are naturally better
qualified 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 available those peculiar qualities which
would render women invaluable in State affairs.
Whatever may be thought of convents, it is true, as
M. Legouve asserts, that there alone have women
hitherto been able to demonstrate their true value,
for there alone have they been free to act indepen-
dently 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, journeys
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,
and from this necessity they have created a long
succession of virtues.
This concentration of administrative powers in
the hands of women has in no instance proved detri-
SATAN IN SOOIETf.
353
Women in Convents.
mental to the prosperity of these institutions. On
the contrary, they become rich, powerful, and
famous. In the history of the Abbey of Fontev-
rault 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
Archbishop 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 muskets. They danced for joy, expect-
ing martyrdom! They were separated, some being
imprisoned, and others allowed to remain, but bur-
dened with humiliations. Nothing could break their
courage. They pleaded their cause by their writ-
ings and their conduct, and, ''after eight years of
354
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Public Offices for which Women are better adapted than Men.
contention, during which not a man lent them sup-
port, 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 intel-
ligent 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 public lands there would
doubtless be far more honesty, and probably 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 mater-
nity instincts, involving a leading voice in all
schemes of popular education and reform.
An eloquent letter on this subject was addressed to
the Convention, in the second year of the French
Kepublic, by the Marchioness de Fontenay, a young
and beautiful woman, who afterward became very
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
355
Letter to the French Convention.
famous as Madame Tallien. "Citizen representa-
tives," she wrote, "in a republic all should be repub-
lican, 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 frightful 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 benevolence, 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 unfortu-
nate under the laws of a system organized by you.
Behold their duties and their rights! They are eager
to see them converted into laws, and to enter, by
your voice, into the service of the institutions of the
country. She who addresses this letter to you, citi-
356
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Confer Rights but Impose Duties.
zen 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
sublime patriotism, it is necessary to confer upon her
opportunities of serving the country—with such
opportunities as shall enable her to work to
the best advantage by utilizing those natural
gifts in which she does not suffer in compari-
son with man. It is not enough to confer righis
—it is absolutely necessary to impose duties.
One loves his country in proportion to his success in
serving it. Thus the fires of patriotism burn most
brightly in those who have sacrificed most upon
her sacred altar, and those men who, during our
recent war, bore the brunt of battle and the hard-
ships of the camp, and those women who braved the
dangers of the hospital and the perils of exposure,
♦The woman who uttered these noble sentiments presented, in her own
person, a carious confirmation of all we have alleged against women in
political life. Fleeing from France with her husband during the Reign of
Terror, M. Fontenay was arrested and thrown into prison. While endeavor-
ing, with all a wife's devotion, to secure his release, she yielded to the crim-
inal passion she had inspired in Tallien, 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 subse-
quently re-enacted, and she married a third husband, *Jie Prince of Chamay,
in 1805!
BATAN IN SOCIETT.
357
How to make Patriots.
are patriots by the best of titles—they have "served!"
Says M. Legouve, who ably advocates the suggestions
of Madame Fontenay: "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 beautiful 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 con-
sideration 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 Assembly, in 1789:
"In the name of what principle, in the name of what
right, are women deprived of political functions in a
republican state? I can not discover! The words
* national representation' signify representation of
358
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Argument of Condorcet.
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
wom^n 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 con-
viction, 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 corporal weakness of women? Then
it should be necessary 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 political genius, an objection? It
seems to me that there are many representatives
who do without either. The more we interrogate
good sense and republican principles, the
less can we find a serious reason for depriving
women of participation in political affairs. The
capital objection itself, which is found in every
mouth—the argument based on the declaration that
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
359
Condorcet'e Argument continued.
to open the political career to women is to tear them
from the family—this argument has only the appear-
ance of solidity. In the first place, it does not apply
to the numerous class of women who are not mar-
ried, 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 commer-
cial employments, which now force them in thousands
from family duties, while political offices would not
occupy a hundred in all France. Finally, a cele-
brated woman settles the question by a sublime utter-
ance: 4 Woman has the right to ascend the tribune,
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 politi-
cal 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 republican form of government. To deny
to women all intervention in public affairs is evi-
dently to violate the very principles of republicanism
and of sound policy. All that we have said else-
where shows that our objection to woman's rights
is based neither on physical nor mental disability,
360
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
«
Experience vs. Abstract Right.
nor on any other of the grounds imagined in the
above quotation. Even the so-called "capital objec-
tion "—that which may be called the family argu-
ment—applies with less force to the few successful
candidates than to the thousands of disappointed
aspirants, and with less force to even these than to
the millions of partisans created. (See page 88.)
Viewed as an abstract Tight (if there be such a
thing!) and merely on the basis of Condorcet's argu-
ment, there can be no question. Oar capital objec-
tion is based on the nature of woman as analyzed in
Chapter VIII, and we assert that the facts of history
sustain 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 is called the sensus communis,
the universal sense. This has been ever opposed
to woman's franchise and eligibility. What-
ever 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-
ment of mankind has been entirely influenced by
the ante-Christian spirit of masculine oppression, for
we find it still operative in those early Christian
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
361
Qaotation from Montalembert.
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 Christians as a body,
nor even woman herself, claiming political "equality"
for women. Nevertheless, we know that in certain
quarters, and with more or less restrictions, 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 Komans 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 put-
ting themselves under the protection of those -whom
they believed virgins and priestesses. The great
beginner of democratic dictatorship refused, upon
which they killed themselves and their children,
generously preferring death to shame. The Anglo-
Saxons came from the same districts, bathed by the
362
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Quotation from Montalembert continued.
waters of the Northern Sea, which had been inhab-
ited 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 Koman
spirit which put a wife in manu9 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 pen-
alties, and protected by universal respect. She
inherits, 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 Con-
federation. Possessing a court, legal juris-
diction, and territorial revenue on her own
account, surrounded with the same homage some-
times invested with the same rights and author-
* 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. Witness Boadicea,
immortalized by Tacitus. Free women, married and possessing five acres
of land, voted in the public assemblies of the clans or tribes of Britain.—
Ancient Laws of Cambria.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
363
Quotation concladed.
ity as the sovereign, his wife took her place by his
side in the political and religious assemblies, and her
signature appeared in facts of foundation, in the
decrees of the councils, and in the charters, some-
times 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 Teu-
tons (of whom Tacitus speaks) in all their hus-
bands' 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."
We need not rehearse the history of the numerous
empresses, queens, and regents, from Semiramis,
who gained her crown by an artifice and crime
♦Sexburga was made Queen-regent by her husband, King of Wessex,
Kinewalk, at his death in A. D. 673.
364
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Examples of Female Rulers.
essentially feminine,* or (if her existence as a histo-
rical personage be denied) from Athaliah, who, B.
C. 884, "arose and slew air the s9ed-royal of the
house of Judah" in order to ascend the throne, to
Maria Christina, Queen-Dowager and Ex-Eegent
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 fem-
inine 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 over-
shadow her efficiency that '' abdication" and a
"regency" have been already pretty loudly hinted.
For the record of history in relation to women in
political life we need go no further than the French
Eevolution, where women invaded the political
domain in crowds, and for three years fully tested
*It is said that, having induced her husband to surrender the crown to her
for five days, she used her absolute authority to procure his assassination,
and thus secure her permanent possession of the throne! If, as some histo-
rians contend, Semiramis is a fabulous 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.
365
Examples of Women as Statesmen and Politicians.
the experiment which it is now sought to repeat.
The experience has not proved favorable, even with
all possible allowance 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 stateswomcm 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 irritable; 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. Legouve, "What a statesman! She had
political sentiments in place of ideas, and became the
death of the party from the moment she became
its soul."
As a politician we select, among many striking
examples, that of Marie Olympe de Gouges, who was
a most prolific writer upon political and social econ-
omy—the authoress of more than twenty volumes.
Says Legouve: "She lacked but one thing—prin-
366
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
A Political Stump-Orator.
ciples. She called herself national, yet proposed
that each party should choose the government it
preferred. She called herself republican, yet
demanded a costly civil list for the king. She
declared Louis XVI a traitor, and one year after-
ward 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 console, 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-ia Societe des Bepublicaines 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 monsieur" and wished
"nothing more than to overthrow the Commune."
She was compelled to hide in order to escape the
vengeance of her former friends, and "three months
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
367
Female Political Clubs in France.
afterward a member of the Convention observed
under the peristyle of a theater an obsequious young
shopwoman, graceful, lively, and full of skill in dis-
playing 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 Legouv6, 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 Eeign of Terror, when they wished, at
the Commune, to vote some violent measure, such
as the erection of a statue of Marat, or the right of
domiciliary visits, they caused it to be first proposed
by La Societe Fraiernelle. Was it intended to rule
the discussion at the Assembly, to stifle the voice of
Vergniaud, they crowded the benches with the
Republicaines Revolutionnaires. 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 trestles in order to be
nearer to the death-agony, drowning the cries of the
victims under their shouts of laughter, mingled with
368
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Women of the French Revolution.
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: I
1 De ces eflray antes femelles
Les intarissables mamelles,
Comme de publiques gamelles,
Offrent a boire a tont passant.
Et la liqueur qui toujours coule,
Et dont Tabominable foule,
Avec avidite ee soule
Ce n'est pas de l'eau, c'est du eang.'
In exchange for these hideous services the terrorists
accorded more than one honorable privilege to the
revolutionary women: the right of appearing in
public preceded by a banner bearing a device;
fraternal honors 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 re-action 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
of the Convention and said: 'Shall women exercise
political rights and take an active part in the govern-
BATAN IN SOCIETY.
369
Experiment of "Woman's Rights " in France.
ment? Shall they deliberate as popular societies?
The Committee has decided in the negative. To exer-
cise 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 sacrifice the interests
of the state to all the disorders that the heat of pas-
sions may produce!' The Convention immediately
rendered the following decree: 'All clubs and popu-
lar societies of women, under whatever designation,
are forbidden.' Certainly, they could not have more
speedily forgotten their principles and their allies!
"Some days afterward a deputation of the Repub-
licaines Revolutiomiaires 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 precipitately, amid
the hoots and jeers of the spectators and representa-
tives.
"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 violent murmurs that Chaumette, arising, cried
370
SATAN IN SOCIETY,
'* Woman's Rights " in France continued.
out: 'I demand honorable mention in the proces-
verbal of the murmurs which have just arisen. It
is a homage to manners! The place where the mag-
istrates of the people deliberate should be inter-
dicted to every one who outrages natureV One of
the members having ventured 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 it has
been allowed to abjure one's sex? Since when has it
been decent to behold women abandoning the pious
charge of their households to come upon the public
arena, to join the harangues of the tribunes at the bar
of the Assembly? Impudent women, who desire to
become men, to make motions, and to fight, remem-
ber 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 Republicaines Eevolutionnaires, as feeble 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.
"Thus ended, almost without opposition, that
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
371
Woman's Incapacity for Statesmanship,
political role 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 festival 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 elan
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. 4 No more misery,' cried
they on returning, * nous ramenons le boidangereja
boulangere 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 political emancipation can only retard her
legitimate development by converting into positive
faults those native characteristics which, properly
employed, constitute the elements of her greatest
strength.
372
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Prevalence of the Evil.
x.
PROSTITUTION.
THERE 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 thous-
ands of the former, and untold millions of the latter.
Its increase is so alarmingly rapid, that the attention
of -philanthropists 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 meet with the best chances
for adoption, and which has actually been
carried to practical operation in some cities, is the
one which, in our judgment, is most surely calcu-
lated to foster and perpetuate the evil. "We allude
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
373
Only Christian Charity can deal with it. No Official Recognition.
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 demon-
strated its entire inadequacy to the end proposed
should be revived in this nation of rational prog-
ress 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 resides in whatever method
can attack the root of the evil by reforming those
now engaged in this revolting traffic, and preventing
accessions to their ranks. Only Christian charity
can accomplish these objects, for it remembers One
who spoke gently to an unfortunate woman of the
class and gave her His pardon 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 coun-
trymen of the fatal consequences involved in any
official recognition of a crime which precipitates
humanity to the utmost limits of degradation.
374
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Application of Previous Studies.
XL
HAPPINESS IN WEDLOCK.
T T is far from our intention to present an exhaustive
* treatise upon the subject of this concluding chap-
ter. We sincerely believe that those who have thus
far perused our pages have already formed a toler-
ably clear idea of the relations of the sexes and the
principles 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
themselves upon the earth by means of generation,
and because the complicity of the obligations
imposed upon them necessitates participation. To
facilitate the fusion of these two hearts, God has
ordained that the supreme necessity of thinking
8ATAN IN SOCIETY.
375
Object of Love.
creatures shall be to love and to be loved, and tliat
they shall be drawn toward each other by common
interests and affections. He has endowed them with
sufficient differences to prevent their collision upon
the narrow line of selfishness and egotism, and with
sufficient similitude to unite without 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 contrary, seems endowed with a sort of
brutality. His affections and tendencies develop
only with his growth and in proportion as the neces-
sities of his life exact them.
All the passions of woman relate in the
last analysis to her maternal role. So, as
we have elsewhere asserted, she manifests
the mother almost in her infancy. Her
instincts unceasingly attract her in this direction.
376
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Domestic Happiness in the Largest Sense.
To fulfill so important a function it was absolutely-
necessary that she should be provided with instinct-
ive tendencies, and that her will should be dominated
by the mysterious power of a heart full of obedi-
ence and faith in her mission. Intelligence and
reason alone are not sufficient for the development of
.humanity; the loving element 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 certain, 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 near-
est approach to Paradise—the invisible bond which
attaches him most closely to Divinity. We of course
refer, in this connection, to that love which com-
prises domestic happiness in its largest sense. Mere
sexual desire—the gratification of his carnal appe-
tites—soon takes its proper rank as one of the least
prominent elements of - married felicity. We should
scarcely be believed were we to state how infrequent
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
377
Shall ** Courtship " continue in Marriage.
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 com-
parison 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.1' Even in the most intimate relations of mar-
riage, love is expended chiefly in charming conver-
sations, in acts and words which breathe only
goodness, grace, and delicacy. Women demand not
that the extravagances 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 sup-
planted by the flattering acts of the husband, and
even reproaches can be administered without sacri-
fice 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. 9e Balzac, in illustra-
tion:
"One fine morning in the month of January, 1822,
378
SATAN IN SOCIETY
Narratiye from Balzac.
I ascended the boulevards of Paris, from the peace-
ful spheres of the Marais to the elegant regions of
the Chaussee cPAntin, 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 Mathematics resided within a
short distance of my friend's house, and I decided
to visit that worthy before delivering my stomach to
all the dainties of friendship. I penetrated easily to
the interior of a cabinet where everything was cov-
ered 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 reserved by housewives
for persons whom they do not know, but she did not
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
379
Narrative from Balzac.
so disguise the pouting air which clouded her face
on my arrival, but that I could perceive the inop-
portuneness of my presence. Doubtless busy with
an equation, my teacher had not yet raised his head;
so I waived 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
expression, '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
advanced her head toward the scholar, like a bird
perched upon a branch stretching its neck to receive
a grain.
380
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Narrative from Balzac.
"'It 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 precep*
tor would have comprehended this glance, but it was
Chinese 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 curi-
osity to examine some article. My discretion was
recompensed by an eloquent glance. Alas! she little
knew the acuteness of my sense of hearing.'
"'The principles of general economy,' said my
master, 1 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 syllable,) 4 the cuisine consumes four
thousand francs; our children require atleast 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 diamond cross, it will be
SATAN IN SOIOETT.
381
Narrative from Balzac.
necessary to take one thousand crowns from our cap-
ital, 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 expenses will increase. Come,
be wise!'
"'It 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 punish-
ment.
"My preceptor shook his head joyfully. When
he saw the door close he rubbed his hands; we chat-
ted 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 ecumen-
ical discipline of gastronomy. It was, I believe, in
opening a paie 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 rossin's.'
382
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Narrative from Balzac.
"' They are yours, then,' pleasantly exclaimed my
comrade, drawing from his pocket-book three one
thousand franc notes which he flourished in the
sparkling eyes of his wife. 'I can no more resist
the pleasure of offering 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?'
"1 Mediant! 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. Alexander handed her the price of the dia-
monds, exclaiming: 'I had seen the flowers!'
"I 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.
"The breakfast terminated very gayly. Soon
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
383
Narrative from Balzac.
installed in a little parlor newly decorated, and seated
before a cheerful fire, I complimented the loving
couple upon the furnishing of their establishment.
"1 It is a pity it all cost so dearly!' said my friend;
4but 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 inven-
toried with her eyes the pretty boudoir, and from
brilliant her face became thougjitiu]. Alexander
took me by the hand and drew me into the embrasure
of a window. ^ j
"' Do you happen to have a thousand pounds to
lend mef said he in a low voice; 61 have only ten or
twelve thousand pounds income, and this year—'
"'Alexander!' cried the dear creature, interrupt-
ing 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, I ruin you! I ought to have
known that you love me too much to permit myself
to confide io you all my wishes.'
384
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
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
little white and delicate hand, 'are you not going on
Thursday to the ball of Madame?'
"'I 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
anacreontic 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 comprised the entire expense. She
wore a little cross, a la "Jeannette, attached to a
black velvet ribbon, which enhanced 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
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
385
Narrative from Balzac concluded.
droll!' said I to a personage who had as yet neither
read in the great book of the world, nor deciphered
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
indefinable smile.
"'How, 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 conquer-
ing Alexander.'
"'Was he easily seduced?'
"She answered me with a look of triumph."
In this little story .resides a whole treatise on
domestic happiness. It is not that Monsieur de
M. was a learned fool, nor that Alexander was a
doting hypocrite. It is that woman has a per-
fect horror of conviction; that she is easily
persuaded to give that which no force can extort
from her; that she loves to be won—to grant a
386
SATAN IN SOCIETY
Conjugal Politics. Science of Fig-leaves.
favor; that exact reasonings irritate and vex her;
that the secret of governing her resides in mak-
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 dia-
mond she can only be conquered by herself. To
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 nations—a bauble may
lead the people where whole armies could never
drive them!
The general education of our girls is as pernicious
as it could well be made. Beared 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
arrangement 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 daughter, your fig-leaf fits well; my
daughter, would not your fig-leaf be more becoming
sof Fed, almost exclusively, upon works of fiction,
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
387
PerniciouB Education vs. Conjugal Happiness.
their diseased intelligence incessantly creates some
imaginary hero with whose impossible attributes
they are wont to invest their "intended," and a miser-
able life-time barely suffices to instruct them that
the heroes of romance are as rare as the Apollos of
sculpture. Surely it is not surprising if they per-
sist 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-
ituelle princess, who, on being informed of a riot
occasioned 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 sta-
tion, but it is wonderful to observe how many even
of this class allow to be perpetuated in their daugh-
ters the same ruinous customs which had well-nigh
wrecked themselves. We know hundreds of excel-
lent matrons who are practically conversant 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 flirt with equally
388
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
0 Courting vs. Hygiene.
vapid gallants. We see them return from their pol-
ishing schools"—these demoiselles—cursed with a
superficial smattering of every thing but what they
ought to have learned—physical and moral wrecks
whom we are expected to ivind 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 object—as the sovereign
remedy, Now and again we are allowed the privi-
lege of probing a young lady's *' accomplishments"
for the purpose of discovering whether by any pos-
sible chance some one natural gift may have been
allowed its normal development. Alas! if in rare
instances we can exclaim Eureka! and if, still less fre-
quently, 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
*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 I"
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
389
The Idea of Ownership in Relation to ,l Dishonor."
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 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 otherwise 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 disap-
pointments knows how these must always result.
The ante-Christian idea of ownership and mastery
has clung with astonishing pertinacity to the mar-
riage relation. To this reason, more than all others,
must be attributed the universal want of sympathy
accorded to the husband of an unfaithful wife. He
is like the jailer whose prisoner's escape provokes
only ridicule. It is, perhaps, the only grief at
which every one laughs save the sufferer. The crime
of the guilty becomes the shame of the innocent,
and he is called "dishonored." Blood alone
390 SATAN IN SOCIETY.
"Marriages of Inclination."
can wash away the stain; the world abso-
lutely prescribes for him to kill or be killed.
Everywhere, in proportion, to the weakening
of Christian influence is the idea of ownership
and mastery regaining the ascendency. Another
powerful cause of conjugal disappointment 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 disenchantment leads frequently
to the most pronounced antipathies. 4'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 aphor-
ism: "There are only two happy days in marriage
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
391
Story of a Conjugal Hero.
—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:
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 toler-
ates, 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
minister to the needs discovered too late, was a young
man of twenty whose assiduous devotion attracted
our especial notice. His form was beautifully ath-
letic, and he would have been strikingly handsome,
but for the ravages of a small-pox, whjch had not,
however, destroyed 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 mercan-
392
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Story of a Conjugal Hero.
tile enterprise was enabling him to support a wid-
owed mother and younger brother and sister, Whose
home was in a distant State. He had obtained
the entree to the house of sorrow and poverty
through his church associations, and not only
his substantial aid, but his extremely efficient ser-
vices as nurse, soothed the last days of the old lady,
and relieved her anxiety in behalf of her two little
daughters of ten and twelve years—her only remain-
ing 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 inevitable death. After the last sad
rites we knew nothing of the family save the assur-
ance that they were "provided for"—how, and by
whom, we scarcely cared to inquire, and the circum-
stance was displaced from our memory by fresh
scenes of trouble and desolation which the kaleido-
scope 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 wanting.
They were the shy little girl and the generous
youth of the death scene—she grown to a beautiful
SATAN TN SOCIETY.
393
Story of a Conjugal Hero.
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
attentions, were beyond expression. A pregnancy,
of which this illness was the announcement, pro-
duced in her system that degree of irritation—hap-
pily 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 investi-
gation, which, we had candidly informed him, was to
settle the question of life or death for his darling,
nor his inexpressible anguish when our worst fears
were confirmed. From that moment for three entire
months he abandoned business—everything, includ-
ing 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, throughout 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
394
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Story of a Conjugal Hero.
coffin to be buried with its mother, who lay uncon-
scious, scarcely the faintest respiration indicating that
the spirit still lingered. She died, apparently, and
we wondered next day, as we drove to the door—
trying to coin 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 greeted 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" beneath her that for almost a year she
*For the benefit of our medical readers, we give a brief recital of the
pathological features of this truly wonderful case: Coincidently with the
beginning of pregnancy was a pneumonia, attended with complete hepati-
zation of the right lung, followed by acute gastritis, then hepatitis, and
finally nephritis, with hematuria, albuminuria, ascites, and all the final
phenomena of that desperate condition. The labor, somewhat premature,
was ushered in by convulsions, followed by coma, stertorous respiration,
etc., which continued forty-eight hours. A tympanites—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 capacity, 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 believe that we never pretended
to claim credit for this recovery* so clearly a miracle of Providence!
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
395
Story of a Conjugal Hero.
propelled herself about her chamber by resting the
palms of her hands upon the floor. With indomit-
able patience and perseverance the husband addressed
himself to the task of removing these last horrors.
Under our direction, he "dressed" and finally healed
the frightful hiatus in the back, and then with gen-
tle force and suave determination he "worked at
those legs" till in eighteen months he had accom-
plished what modern surgery had declared impossi-
ble. 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 fellow whom the devil had endowed
for the purpose with a smooth face and a corrupt
heart! Nor did the exquisite tenderness of this alto-
gether exceptional man stop here. It provided for the
maintainance and education of his wife's younger sister
and follows the perjured creature even into the pur-
lieus 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 sab-
lime picture has ever been presented to our view.
396
SATAN IN SOCIETY,
Story of a Conjugal Hero concluded.
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 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.
* We can almost hear the vile calumniator of every virtue exclaiming:
"What a fool, he hadn't the spirit of a mouse!" Pardon, sir, nothing is
wanting in thiB picture—not even the physical courage of which you make
so much. Returning 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 "gentleman was not a proper person to visit her," he made no further
allusion to the subject. Returning again "quite unexpectedly," a day or
two afterward, he found "my gentleman" in the act of ringing for admis-
sion. Not a word was exchanged, but a brief "sparring exhibition" trans-
pired on the sidewalk, out of which emerged one of the contestants with a
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.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
397
41 Falling in Love.'*
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, and she soon feels at ease only by
his side. All other companions are displeasing 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 pas-
sion 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
imprudently crossed in the indulgence of her love, she
speedily becomes cunning and provident in the inter-
est of her passion. She finds the most incredible
resources in her instincts, in her woman-nature a
degree of assurance and skill in evading the pene-
trating eyes of a mother, or the perspicacity of a
father, which are truly astonishing. She finds
398
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Canning of Young Girls "in love."
methods of giving natural and satisfactory explana-
tions to the most difficult situations. 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 Juliet 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 escaped,
she exclaims:
Who is't that calls? Is it my lady mother?
Is she not down so late, or np so early?
What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?
LADY OAPULET.
Why! how now, Juliet?
JULIET.
Madam tT am not well.
LADY OAPTTLET.
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.
JULIET.
Yet let me weep for sucli a feeling loss.
LADY 0APT7LET.
So shall yon 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.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
399
Scene from Borneo and Juliet,
LADY OAPULET.
Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death,
As that the villain lives which slaughtered him.
JULIET.
What villain, madam?
LADY OAPULET.
That same villain, Borneo.
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 OAPULET.
That is, because the traitor murderer lives.
JULIET.
Ay, madam, from the reach of these my handi.
'Would none but I might venge my cousin's death
LADY OAPULET.
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.
JULIET.
Indeed, X never shall be satisfied ■
With Romeo, till I behold him—dead—■
Is my poor heart eo 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 slaughtered him.
LADY OAPULET.
Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man.
But, now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.
400
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Time will u cure" the Delusions of Love.
JUUBT.
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 irrevoca-
ble step, is equally potent to prevent ill-assorted
unions if only the indispensable management be
judiciously employed. Consent should not be with-
held, the condition of postponement only need be
insisted on, a concession readily obtained in most
cases. Then situations should be contrived, calcu-
lated to bring before the eyes of the deluded girl
those qualities in her lover, which odious to every
one else, will soon end by becoming so to herself.*
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
*We knew of a certain father who skillfully managed a uonre" by taking
the young man into his family and there ** exhibiting his paces" with such
tact and skiU, that the young lady soon presented "the mitten." Not a
word was said against the young gentleman from first to last.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
401
How a Girl recorers from misplaced Love.
the ideal with which she had invested him, 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 asser-
tion, that only Christian marriages can be per-
manently 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
salutary influence of women, 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?
and Venus instead of His Blessed Mother. Such
inevitably bring disappointments, 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 obligations and faithful to
the end. We trust then that none of our readers
402
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
Divine Grace necessary to Happiness.
"professing" Christianity will smile at our assert-
* ions, that special supernatural gifts are absolutely
required for the attainment of true domestic hap-
piness. Such special gifts can only be obtained by
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
Christian 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 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 strengthened by the husband,
who in turn is made better by the wife. Tender-
ness, tempering passion with sympathy, 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
SATAN IN SOCIETT.
403
Ideal of the Christian Marriage.
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 Michael 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 countenance?"
CONJUGAL APHORISMS.
i.
A HUSBAND is generally the architect of his
own misfortunes.
ii.
Love does not stand still. It moves—forward or
backward.
ill.
A husband should never indulge in pleasures
which he has not the talent to render reciprocal.
IV.
Conjugal pleasures should never degenerate into
habits.
v.
Modesty is a feminine attribute which should be
preserved or cultivated, but never destroyed.
VI.
Prodigality of personal charms leads Love to
bankruptcy.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
4.5
YI.
Women like to feel that a man desires to grant
what he may be compelled to refuse.
VIII.
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."
XL
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.
406
it
SATAN IN. SOCIETY.
XIY.
When a woman takes suddenly to habits of
devotion, she is almost always straggling with a
new love or forgetting 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
44 falling in love."
xvni.
Sudden and unwonted scrupulousness of toilet
announces 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 pro-
portion to the favors she has bestowed.
SATAN IN SOCIETY.
407
XXI.
Every husband of genius should be a strenuous
advocate 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.
XXIV.
The only recipe for permanent happiness in wed-
lock: Christianity.

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44
THAI

BY .
ANATOLE FRANPE.
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