Marie Stopes - Married Love or Love in Marriage

Married Love or Love in Marriage

Marie Stopes

Married Love or Love in Marriagewas first published in 1918.

This edition published by Mint Editions 2021.

ISBN 9781513223087 | E-ISBN 9781513221588

Published by Mint Editions

minteditionbooks.com

Publishing Director: Jennifer Newens

Design & Production: Rachel Lopez Metzger

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PREFACE

B Y

Miss JESSIE MURRAY, M.B., B.S.

I n this little book Dr. Marie Stopes deals with subjects which are generally regarded as too sacred for an entirely frank treatment. Some earnest and delicate minds may feel apprehensive that such frankness in details is dangerous, because the effect on prurient minds might be to give them food for their morbid fancies. It is just such a fear which has been largely responsible for the silence and mystery which have for so long been wrapped round the sacred rites of mating.

The question now is, Has this reticence been carried too far? Has it been carried so far that it now tends to defeat its purpose of safeguarding public morals? There are many who unhesitatingly answer such questions in the affirmative. Their intimate knowledge of human lives compels them to recognise that at least as much harm is done by silence as by speaking out. Everything depends on how the matter is presented.

Those who are shocked at the publication of such a book as this on the ground that it gives material for impure minds to sport with, need only reflect that such material is already amply provided in certain comic papers, in hosts of inferior novels, too often on the stage and film, and presented thus in coarse and demoralising guise. It can do nothing but good to such minds to meet the facts they are already so familiar with in a totally new light.

On the other hand, there are all the earnest and noble young minds who seek to know what responsibilities they are taking on themselves when they marry, and how they may best meet these responsibilities. How few of them have more than the vaguest ideas on the subject! How few of them know how or where to obtain the help they desire!

They recoil from the coarse and impure sources of information which are so accessible, and they hesitate to approach those they have learned to regard as virtuous and modest, realising that from such they will receive so little actual information, and that so veiled as to be almost useless.

Dr. Stopes has attempted to meet the need of such seekers, and her book will certainly be warmly welcomed by them. It is calculated to prevent many of those mistakes which wreck the happiness of countless lovers as soon as they are actually married. If it did no more than this it would be valuable indeed!

But there is an even more important aspect to be consideredthe effect on the child. In all civilised lands there is a growing sense of responsibility towards the young.

The problems of their physical and mental nurture attract more and more attention day by day. Eugenists, educationists, physicians, politicians, philanthropists, and even ordinary parents discuss and ponder, ponder and discuss, matters both great and small which have a bearing on the development of the child. By common consent the first seven years of life are regarded as the most critical. It is during these years that the foundations of the personality-to-be are laidwell and truly or otherwise. It is during these years that the deepest and most ineradicable impressions are made in the plastic constitution of the child, arresting or developing this or the other instinctive trend and fixing it, often for life.

And it is during these years above all that the parents play the most important role in the inner history of the childs life, not so much by anything they directly teach through verbal exhortations, warnings, or commands, as by those subtler influences which are conveyed in gesture, tone, and facial expression. The younger the child, the more is it influenced through these more primitive modes of expression, and quite as much when they are not directed towards itself but are employed by the parents in their intimate relations with one another in the presence of their apparently unobserving childthe infant in its cot, the toddling baby by the hearth, the little child to all appearance absorbed in its picture book or toy.

Is it not of the utmost importance that these earliest impressions should be of the finest nature? And should we not therefore welcome all that may helpas this book canto make the living cradle of the next generation as full of beauty and harmony as love and mutual understanding can?

The age-long conflict between the lower and the higher impulses, between the primitive animal nature and the specifically human developments of an altruistic and ethical order, are fought afresh in each soul and in every marriage.

We need to realise more clearly that the lower is neverought never to beeliminated but rather subsumed by the higher. No true harmony can be hoped for so long as one factor or the other is ignored or repressed.

Dr. Stopes makes some very important biological suggestions which should not be lightly dismissed. Further observation is required to establish or disprove her theory of the normal sexual cycle in women, but my own observation certainly tends to confirm it.

J. M. M URRAY

Letter from Professor E. H. S TARLING, M.D., B.S., F.R.S., Professor of Physiology, University of London

U NIVERSITY C OLLEGE,

G OWER S TREET, L ONDON, W.C.,

November 23, 1917

D EAR D R. S TOPES,

The need of such guidance as you give is very evident. After all, instinct in man is all insufficient to determine social behaviour, and there is need of instruction in the highest of physiological functions, that of reproduction, as there is in the lower functions of eating and drinkingthe only difference being that in the former instruction can be deferred to a later age. And there is no doubt that in this case it is better to acquire knowledge by instruction than by a type of experience which is nearly always sordid and may be fraught with danger to the health of the individual and of the family.

At the present time it is of vital importance to the State that its marriages should be fruitfulin children, happiness, and efficiency (and all three are closely connected).

If your book helps in securing this object, your trouble will not have been in vain.

Believe me,
Yours very truly,
E RNEST H. S TARLING

M ore than ever today are happy homes needed. It is my hope that this book may serve the State by adding to their numbers. Its object is to increase the joys of marriage, and to show how much sorrow may be avoided.

T he only secure basis for a present-day State is the welding of its units in marriage; but there is rottenness and danger at the foundations of the State if many of the marriages are unhappy. Today, particularly in the middle classes in this country, marriage is far less really happy than its surface appears. Too many who marry expecting joy are bitterly disappointed; and the demand for freedom grows; while those who cry aloud are generally unaware that it is more likely to have been their own ignorance than the marriage-bond which was the origin of their unhappiness.