sentimentally inclined should beware of giving way to advances on the part of young men which have only one object in view: the gratification of their animal passion.

The holding of hands and similar innocent beginnings often pave the way for more familiar caresses. Passionate kisses—the promiscuous kiss, by the way, may be the carrier of that dread infection, syphilis—violently awaken a young girl's sex instincts. The fact is that many innocent girls idealize their seducers. They believe their lying promises, actually come to love them, and think that in gratifying their inflamed desires, they are giving a proof of the depth and purity of their own affection.

Here, as in the case of the young man, self-control should be the first thing cultivated. And self-control should be made doubly sure by never permitting one of the opposite sex to show undue familiarity. Many a seemingly innocent flirtation, begun with a kiss, has ended in shame and disgrace, in loss of social standing and position, venereal disease, or even death. The pure-minded and innocent girl often becomes a victim of her ignorance of the consequences entailed by giving in to the desires of some male companion. The girl who has a knowledge of sex facts is less apt to be taken advantage of in this manner.

MODERN CONDITIONS WHICH ENCOURAGE IMMORALITY

Excessive Freedom.—The excessive freedom granted the young girl, especially since the World War, must be held responsible for a great increase in familiarity between the adolescent youth of both sexes. Many young girls of the “flapper” type, in particular, are victims of these conditions of unrestrained sex association. Sex precocity is furthered in coeducational colleges, in the high school and the home. Adolescents of both sexes too often are practically unhampered in their comings and goings, their words and actions. The surreptitious pocket flask, filled with “hooch,” is often a feature of social parties, dances and affairs frequented by young people. Girls and boys drink together, and as alcohol weakens moral resistance in the one case, and stimulates desire in the other, deplorable consequences naturally result. In the United States the number of girls “sent home” from colleges, and of high-school girls being privately treated by physicians to save them from disgrace, is incredibly large.

Parents who do not control the social activities of their daughters, who permit them to spend their evenings away from home with only a general idea of what they are doing or whom they are meeting, need not be surprised if their morals are undermined.

The Auto.—The advent of the automobile is responsible for an easy and convenient manner of satisfying precociously aroused sex instincts in young girls and boys. Often, unconscientious pleasure-seekers roam the roads in their auto. They accost girls who are walking and offer them a “lift.” When the latter refuse to gratify their desires they are often beaten and flung from the car. The daily press has given such publicity to this civilized form of “head hunting,” that it is difficult to sympathize with girls who are thus treated. They cannot help but know that in nine cases out of ten, a stranger who invites them to a ride, who “picks” them up, does so with the definite purpose already mentioned in view.

Poverty.—Poverty, too, plays a large part in driving young girls into a life of vice. In all our large cities there are hundreds of young women who earn hardly enough to buy food and fuel and pay for the rent of a room in a cheap lodging house. Feminine youth longs for dress, for company, for entertainment. It is easy enough to find a “gentleman friend” who will provide all three, in exchange for “companionship.” So the bargain is struck. These conditions exist in a hundred and one occupations. A young woman may go to a large city as pure as snow, but finding no lucrative employment, lonely and despondent, she is led to take her first step on the downward path. Soon daily contact with vice removes abhorrence to it. Familiarity makes it habitual, and another life is ruined. The heartless moral code of the cynical young pleasure-seeking male is summed up in the cant phrase anent women: “Find, ... and forget!” It is these girls, who are victimized by their lack of self-restraint or moral principle, their ignorance or weakness, who make possible the application of such a maxim.

VIRGINITY

Both mental and physical purity are rightfully required of the young girl about to marry. How shall she acquire and maintain this desirable state of purity? The process is a simple one. She must let a knowledge of the true hygienic and moral laws of her sex guide her in her relations with men. She must cultivate clean thought on a basis of physical cleanliness. She need not be ignorant to be pure. Men she should study carefully. She should not allow them to sit with their arm about her waist, to hold her hand, to kiss her. No approach nor touch beyond what the best social observance sanctions should be permitted. Even the tendernesses and familiarities of courtship should be restrained. An engagement does not necessarily culminate in a marriage, and once the foot has slipped on virtue's path the error cannot be recalled. These considerations, together with those adduced in the preceding section, “Why Young Girls Fall,” are well worth taking to heart by every young woman who wishes to approach matrimony in the right and proper way.

CHAPTER VII

SEX IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION
THE HUSBAND

Marriage is the process by which a man and woman enter into a complete physical, legal and moral union. The natural object of marriage is the complete community of life for the establishment of a family.

THE MARRIAGEABLE AGE AND ADAPTATION

At twenty-four the male body attains its complete development; and twenty-five is a proper age for the young man to marry. Romantic love, personal affection on a basis of congeniality, mutual adaptation, a similar social sphere of life, should determine his choice. Nature and custom indicate that the husband should be somewhat older than the wife.

MEN WHO SHOULD NOT MARRY

Men suffering with diseases which may be communicated by contagion or heredity should not marry. These diseases include: tuberculosis, syphilis, cancer, leprosy, epilepsy and some nervous disorders, some skin diseases and insanity. A worn-out rake has no business to marry, since marriage is not a hospital for the treatment of disease, or a reformatory institution for moral lepers. Those having a marked tendency to disease must not marry those of similar tendency. The marriage of cousins is not to be advocated. The blood relation tends to bring together persons with similar morbid tendencies. Where both are healthy, however, there seems to be no special liability to mental incompetency, though such marriages are accused of producing defective or idiot children. Men suffering from congenital defects should not marry. Natural blindness, deafness, muteness, and congenital deformities of limb are more or less likely to be passed on to their children. There are cases of natural blindness, though, to which this rule does not apply. Criminals, alcoholics, and persons disproportionate in size should not marry. In the last-mentioned, lack of mutual physical adaptability may produce much unhappiness, especially on the part of the wife. Serious local disease, sterility, and great risk in childbirth may result. Disparity of years,