Studies in the psychology of sex, volume VI. Sex in Relation to Society by Havelock Ellis. - HTML preview

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supposes? For this purpose the use of cold washes

and

applications is common, some even seek to stop the

flow by a cold

bath, as was done by a now careful mother, who long

lay at the

point of death from the result of such indiscretion,

and but

slowly, by years of care, regained her health. The

terrible

warning has not been lost, and mindful of her own

experience she

has taught her children a lesson which but few are

fortunate

enough to learn--the individual care during periods

of functional

activity which is needful for the preservation of

woman's

health."

In a study of one hundred and twenty-five American

high school

girls Dr. Helen Kennedy refers to the "modesty"

which makes it

impossible even for mothers and daughters to speak

to each other

concerning the menstrual functions. "Thirty-six

girls in this

high school passed into womanhood with no knowledge

whatever,

from a proper source, of all that makes them women.

Thirty-nine

were probably not much wiser, for they stated that

they had

received some instruction, but had not talked freely

on the

matter. From the fact that the curious girl did not

talk freely

on what naturally interested her, it is possible she

was put off

with a few words as to personal care, and a

reprimand for her

curiosity. Less than half of the girls felt free to

talk with

their mothers of this most important matter!" (Helen Kennedy,

"Effects of High School Work upon Girls During

Adolescence,"

_Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1896.)

The same state of things probably also prevails in

other

countries. Thus, as regards France, Edmond de

Goncourt in

_Chérie_ (pp. 137-139) described the terror of his

young heroine

at the appearance of the first menstrual period for

which she

had never been prepared. He adds: "It is very

seldom, indeed,

that women speak of this eventuality. Mothers fear

to warn their

daughters, elder sisters dislike confidences with

their younger

sisters, governesses are generally mute with girls

who have no

mothers or sisters."

Sometimes this leads to suicide or to attempts at

suicide. Thus a

few years ago the case was reported in the French

newspapers of a

young girl of fifteen, who threw herself into the

Seine at

Saint-Ouen. She was rescued, and on being brought

before the

police commissioner said that she had been attacked

by an

"unknown disease" which had driven her to despair.

Discreet

inquiry revealed that the mysterious malady was one

common to all

women, and the girl was restored to her

insufficiently punished

parents.

Half a century ago the sexual life of girls was ignored by their parents

and teachers from reasons of prudishness; at the present time, when quite

different ideas prevail regarding feminine education, it is ignored on the

ground that girls should be as independent of their

physiological sexual

life as boys are. The fact that this mischievous neglect has prevailed

equally under such different conditions indicates

clearly that the varying

reasons assigned for it are merely the cloaks of

ignorance. With the

growth of knowledge we may reasonably hope that one of the chief evils

which at present undermine in early life not only

healthy motherhood but

healthy womanhood generally, may be gradually

eliminated. The data now

being accumulated show not only the extreme prevalence of painful,

disordered, and absent menstruation in adolescent girls and young women,

but also the great and sometimes permanent evils

inflicted upon even

healthy girls when at the beginning of sexual life they are subjected to

severe strain of any kind. Medical authorities,

whichever sex they belong

to, may now be said to be almost or quite unanimous on this point. Some

years ago, indeed, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, in a very

able book, _The

Question of Rest for Women_, concluded that "ordinarily healthy" women may

disregard the menstrual period, but she admitted that

forty-six per cent,

of women are not "ordinarily healthy," and a minority which comes so near

to being a majority can by no means be dismissed as a

negligible quantity.

Girls themselves, indeed, carried away by the ardor of their pursuit of

work or amusement, are usually recklessly and ignorantly indifferent to

the serious risks they run. But the opinions of teachers are now tending

to agree with medical opinion in recognizing the

importance of care and

rest during the years of adolescence, and teachers are even prepared to

admit that a year's rest from hard work during the

period that a girl's

sexual life is becoming established, while it may ensure her health and

vigor, is not even a disadvantage from the educational point of view. With

the growth of knowledge and the decay of ancient

prejudices, we may

reasonably hope that women will be emancipated from the traditions of a

false civilization, which have forced her to regard her glory as her

shame,--though it has never been so among robust

primitive peoples,--and

it is encouraging to find that so distinguished an

educator as Principal

Stanley Hall looks forward with confidence to such a

time. In his

exhaustive work on _Adolescence_ he writes: "Instead of shame of this

function girls should be taught the greatest reverence for it, and should

help it to normality by regularly stepping aside at

stated times for a few

years till it is well established and normal. To higher beings that looked

down upon human life as we do upon flowers, these would be the most

interesting and beautiful hours of blossoming. With more self-knowledge

women will have more self-respect at this time. Savagery reveres this

state and it gives to women a mystic awe. The time may come when we must

even change the divisions of the year for women, leaving to man his week

and giving to her the same number of Sabbaths per year, but in groups of

four successive days per month. When woman asserts her true physiological

rights she will begin here, and will glory in what, in an age of

ignorance, man made her think to be her shame. The

pathos about the

leaders of woman's so-called emancipation, is that they, even more than

those they would persuade, accept man's estimate of this state."[27]

These wise words cannot be too deeply pondered. The

pathos of the

situation has indeed been--at all events in the past for to-day a more

enlightened generation is growing up--that the very

leaders of the woman's

movement have often betrayed the cause of women. They

have adopted the

ideals of men, they have urged women to become second-

rate men, they have

declared that the healthy natural woman disregards the presence of her

menstrual functions. This is the very reverse of the

truth. "They claim,"

remarks Engelmann, "that woman in her natural state is the physical equal

of man, and constantly point to the primitive woman, the female of savage

peoples, as an example of this supposed axiom. Do they know how well this

same savage is aware of the weakness of woman and her

susceptibility at

certain periods of her life? And with what care he

protects her from harm

at these periods? I believe not. The importance of

surrounding women with

certain precautions during the height of these great

functional waves of

her existence was appreciated by all peoples living in an approximately

natural state, by all races at all times; and among

their comparatively

few religious customs this one, affording rest to women, was most

persistently adhered to." It is among the white races alone that the

sexual invalidism of women prevails, and it is the white races alone,

which, outgrowing the religious ideas with which the

menstrual seclusion

of women was associated, have flung away that beneficent seclusion itself,

throwing away the baby with the bath in an almost

literal sense.[28]

In Germany Tobler has investigated the menstrual

histories of

over one thousand women (_Monatsschrift für

Geburtshülfe und

Gynäkologie_, July, 1905). He finds that in the

great majority of

women at the present day menstruation is associated

with

distinct deterioration of the general health, and

diminution of

functional energy. In 26 per cent. local pain,

general malaise,

and mental and nervous anomalies coexisted; in

larger proportion

come the cases in which local pain, general weak

health or

psychic abnormality was experienced alone at this

period. In 16

per cent. only none of these symptoms were

experienced. In a very

small separate group the physical and mental

functions were

stronger during this period, but in half of these

cases there was

distinct disturbance during the intermenstrual

period. Tobler

concludes that, while menstruation itself is

physiological, all

these disturbances are pathological.

As far as England is concerned, at a discussion of

normal and

painful menstruation at a meeting of the British

Association of

Registered Medical Women on the 7th of July, 1908,

it was stated

by Miss Bentham that 50 per cent. of girls in good

position

suffered from painful menstruation. Mrs. Dunnett

said it usually

occurred between the ages of twenty-four and thirty,

being

frequently due to neglect to rest during

menstruation in the

earlier years, and Mrs. Grainger Evans had found

that this

condition was very common among elementary school

teachers who

had worked hard for examinations during early

girlhood.

In America various investigations have been carried

out, showing

the prevalence of disturbance in the sexual health

of school

girls and young women. Thus Dr. Helen P. Kennedy

obtained

elaborate data concerning the menstrual life of one

hundred and

twenty-five high school girls of the average age of

eighteen

("Effect of High School Work upon Girls During

Adolescence,"

_Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1896). Only twenty-

eight felt no

pain during the period; half the total number

experienced

disagreeable symptoms before the period (such as

headache,

malaise, irritability of temper), while forty-four

complained of

other symptoms besides pain during the period

(especially

headache and great weakness). Jane Kelley Sabine

(quoted in

_Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, Sept. 15,

1904) found in

New England schools among two thousand girls that 75

per cent.

had menstrual troubles, 90 per cent. had leucorrhoea

and ovarian

neuralgia, and 60 per cent. had to give up work for

two days

during each month. These results seem more than

usually

unfavorable, but are significant, as they cover a

large number of

cases. The conditions in the Pacific States are not

much better.

Dr. Mary Ritter (in a paper read before the

California State

Medical Society in 1903) stated that of 660 Freshmen

girls at the

University of California, 67 per cent. were subject

to menstrual

disorders, 27 per cent. to headaches, 30 per cent.

to backaches,

29 per cent. were habitually constipated, 16 per

cent. had

abnormal heart sounds; only 23 per cent. were free

from

functional disturbances. Dr. Helen MacMurchey, in an

interesting

paper on "Physiological Phenomena Preceding or

Accompanying

Menstruation" (_Lancet_, Oct. 5, 1901), by inquiries among one

hundred medical women, nurses, and women teachers in

Toronto

concerning the presence or absence of twenty-one

different

abnormal menstrual phenomena, found that between 50

and 60 per

cent. admitted that they were liable at this time to

disturbed

sleep, to headache, to mental depression, to

digestive

disturbance, or to disturbance of the special

senses, while about

25 to 50 per cent. were liable to neuralgia, to

vertigo, to

excessive nervous energy, to defective nervous and

muscular

power, to cutaneous hyperæsthesia, to vasomotor

disturbances, to

constipation, to diarrhoea, to increased urination,

to cutaneous

eruption, to increased liability to take cold, or to

irritating

watery discharges before or after the menstrual

discharge. This

inquiry is of much interest, because it clearly

brings out the

marked prevalence at menstruation of conditions

which, though not

necessarily of any gravity, yet definitely indicate

decreased

power of resistance to morbid influences and

diminished

efficiency for work.

How serious an impediment menstrual troubles are to

a woman is

indicated by the fact that the women who achieve

success and fame

seem seldom to be greatly affected by them. To that

we may, in

part, attribute the frequency with which leaders of

the women's

movement have treated menstruation as a thing of no

importance in

a woman's life. Adele Gerhard, and Helene Simon,

also, in their

valuable and impartial work, _Mutterschaft und

Geistige Arbeit_

(p. 312), failed to find, in their inquiries among

women of

distinguished ability, that menstruation was

regarded as

seriously disturbing to work.

Of late the suggestion that adolescent girls shall

not only rest

from work during two days of the menstrual period,

but have an

entire holiday from school during the first year of

sexual life,

has frequently been put forward, both from the

medical and the

educational side. At the meeting of the Association

of Registered

Medical Women, already referred to, Miss Sturge

spoke of the good

results obtained in a school where, during the first

two years

after puberty, the girls were kept in bed for the

first two days

of each menstrual period. Some years ago Dr. G.W.

Cook ("Some

Disorders of Menstruation," _American Journal of

Obstetrics_,

April, 1896), after giving cases in point, wrote:

"It is my

deliberate conviction that no girl should be

confined at study

during the year of her puberty, but she should live

an outdoor

life." In an article on "Alumna's Children," by "An Alumna"

(_Popular Science Monthly_, May, 1904), dealing with

the sexual

invalidism of American women and the severe strain

of motherhood

upon them, the author, though she is by no means

hostile to

education, which is not, she declares, at fault,

pleads for rest

for the pubertal girl. "If the brain claims her

whole vitality,

how can there be any proper development? Just as

very young

children should give all their strength for some

years solely to

physical growth before the brain is allowed to make

any

considerable demands, so at this critical period in

the life of

the woman nothing should obstruct the right of way

of this

important system. A year at the least should be made

especially

easy for her, with neither mental nor nervous

strain; and

throughout the rest of her school days she should

have her

periodical day of rest, free from any study or

overexertion." In

another article on the same subject in the same

journal ("The

Health of American Girls," Sept., 1907), Nellie

Comins Whitaker

advocates a similar course. "I am coming to be

convinced,

somewhat against my wish, that there are many cases

when the girl

ought to be taken out of school entirely for some

months or for a

year _at the period of puberty_." She adds that the chief

obstacle in the way is the girl's own likes and

dislikes, and the

ignorance of her mother who has been accustomed to

think that

pain is a woman's natural lot.

Such a period of rest from mental strain, while it

would fortify

the organism in its resistance to any reasonable

strain later,

need by no means be lost for education in the wider

sense of the

word, for the education required in classrooms is

but a small

part of the education required for life. Nor should

it by any

means be reserved merely for the sickly and delicate

girl. The

tragic part of the present neglect to give girls a

really sound

and fitting education is that the best and finest

girls are

thereby so often ruined. Even the English policeman,

who

admittedly belongs in physical vigor and nervous

balance to the

flower of the population, is unable to bear the

strain of his

life, and is said to be worn out in twenty-five

years. It is

equally foolish to submit the finest flowers of

girlhood to a

strain which is admittedly too severe.

It seems to be clear that the main factor in the common sexual and general

invalidism of girls and young women is bad hygiene, in the first place

consisting in neglect of the menstrual functions and in the second place

in faulty habits generally. In all the more essential

matters that concern

the hygiene of the body the traditions of girls--and

this seems to be more

especially the case in the Anglo-Saxon countries--are

inferior to those of

youths. Women are much more inclined than men to

subordinate these things

to what seems to them some more urgent interest or fancy of the moment;

they are trained to wear awkward and constricting

garments, they are

indifferent to regular and substantial meals, preferring innutritious and

indigestible foods and drinks; they are apt to disregard the demands of

the bowels and the bladder out of laziness or modesty; they are even

indifferent to physical cleanliness.[29] In a great

number of minor ways,

which separately may seem to be of little importance,

they play into the

hands of an environment which, not always having been

adequately adjusted

to their special needs, would exert a considerable

stress and strain even

if they carefully sought to guard themselves against it.

It has been found

in an American Women's College in which about half the scholars wore

corsets and half not, that nearly all the honors and

prizes went to the

non-corset-wearers. McBride, in bringing forward this

fact, pertinently

remarks, "If the wearing of a single style of dress will make this

difference in the lives of young women, and that, too, in their most

vigorous and resistive period, how much difference will a score of

unhealthy habits make, if persisted in for a life-

time?"[30]

"It seems evident," A.E. Giles concludes ("Some Points of

Preventive Treatment in the Diseases of Women," _The Hospital_,

April 10, 1897) "that dysmenorrhoea might be to a large extent

prevented by attention to general health and

education. Short

hours of work, especially of standing; plenty of

outdoor

exercise--tennis, boating, cycling, gymnastics, and

walking for

those who cannot afford these; regularity of meals

and food of

the proper quality--not the incessant tea and bread

and butter

with variation of pastry; the avoidance of

overexertion and

prolonged fatigue; these are some of the principal

things which

require attention. Let girls pursue their study, but

more

leisurely; they will arrive at the same goal, but a

little

later." The benefit of allowing free movement and exercise to the

whole body is undoubtedly very great, both as

regards the sexual

and general physical health and the mental balance;

in order to

insure this it is necessary to avoid heavy and

constricting

garments, more especially around the chest, for it

is in

respiratory power and chest expansion more than in

any other

respect that girls fall behind boys (see, e.g.,

Havelock Ellis,

_Man and Woman_, Ch. IX). In old days the great

obstacle to the

free exercise of girls lay in an ideal of feminine

behavior which

involved a prim restraint on every natural movement

of the body.

At the present day that ideal is not so fervently

preached as of

old, but its traditional influence still to some

extent persists,

while there is the further difficulty that adequate

time and

opportunity and encouragement are by no means

generally afforded

to girls for the cultivation and training of the

romping

instincts which are really a serious part of

education, for it is

by such free exercise of the whole body that the

neuro-muscular