I have shown how economic forces in our society make for later and later marriage; and at the present time economic forces are so overwhelming that all other forces are hardly worth mentioning in comparison. You are, let us say, the mother of a boy of eighteen, and you have what you call "common sense"—meaning thereby1 a grasp of the money facts of life. If your darling boy of eighteen should come to you with a grave face and announce, "Mother dear, I have met the girl I love, and we have decided2 that we want to get married"—you would consider that the most absurd thing you had ever heard in all your born days, and you would tell the lad that he was a baby, and to run along and play. If he persisted in his crazy notion, you and your husband and all the brothers and sisters and relatives and friends both of the boy and the girl would set to work, by scolding and ridiculing3, to make life a misery4 for them, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred you would break down the young couple's marital5 intention.
But now, let us try another supposition. Let us suppose that your darling boy of eighteen should come to you again and say, "Mother dear, some of the boys are going to spend this evening in a brothel, and I have decided to go along." Would you think that was the most absurd thing you had ever heard in all your born days? Or would you answer, "Yes, of course, my boy; that is what I had in mind when I made you give up the girl you loved"? No, you would not answer that. But here is the vital fact—it doesn't matter what you would answer, for you would never have a chance to answer. When a mother's darling wants to get married, he comes and asks his mother's blessing6; but never does a mother's darling ask a blessing before he goes with the other boys to a brothel. He just goes. Maybe he borrows the money from some other fellow, and next day tells you he went to a theater. Or maybe he picks up some poor man's daughter on the street, and takes her into the park, or up on the roof of a tenement7. Some such thing he does, to find satisfaction for an instinct which you in your worldly wisdom or your heavenly piety8 spurn9 and ridicule10.
I do not wish to exaggerate. If you are an exceptionally wise and tactful mother, you may keep the confidence of your boy, and guide him day by day through his temptations and miseries11, and keep him chaste12. But the more you try that, the more apt you will be to come to my conclusion, that late marriage is a crime against the race; the more aware you will be of the danger, either that his boy friends may break him down, or that some lewd13 woman may come to his bedroom in the night-time. Never will you be able to be quite sure that he is not lying to you, because of his shame, and the pain he cannot bear to inflict14 upon you. Never will you be quite sure that he is not hiding some cruel disease, sneaking15 off to some quack16 who takes his money and leaves him worse than before—until finally he shoots off his head, as happened to a nephew of an old and dear friend of mine.
Such is the problem of the mother of a son; and now, what about the mother of a daughter? This seems much simpler; because your daughter is not generally troubled with sex cravings, and if you teach her the proprieties17, and see that she is carefully chaperoned, you may reasonably hope that she will be chaste. But some day you expect that she will marry; and then comes your problem. If you are the usual mother, you are looking for some one who can maintain her in the state of life to which she is accustomed. If a fairy prince would come along, or a plaster saint, you would be pleased; but failing that, you will take a successful business man, one who has made his way in the world and secured himself a position. But turn back to the figures I gave you a while ago. If this man is thirty years of age, there is at least a fifty-fifty chance that he has had some venereal disease; and while the doctors claim to cure these diseases absolutely, we must bear in mind that doctors are human, and sometimes claim more than they perform. Every doctor will admit, if you pin him down, that these diseases burrow18 deeply into the tissues, and many times are supposed to be cured when they are only hidden.
Here is, in a nutshell, the problem of the mother of a daughter. If you marry your daughter at seventeen to a lad of her own age, you have a very good chance of marrying her to a person who is chaste. If you marry her to a man of twenty-five, you have perhaps one chance in a hundred. If you marry her to a man of thirty-five, you have perhaps one chance in ten thousand. You may not like these facts; I do not like them myself; but I have learned that facts are none the less facts on that account.
You know the average society bud of eighteen, and her attitude to a boy of the same age. She regards him as a child; and you think, perhaps, that it is natural for a girl to be interested in men of thirty-five and even forty-five. But I tell you that it is not natural, it is simply one of the perversions19 of pecuniary20 sex. The girl is interested in such men, because all her young life she has been carefully coached for the marriage market; because she is dressed for it, and solemnly brought out, and introduced to other players of this exciting game of marriage for money, with its incredible prizes of automobiles21 and jewels and palaces full of servants, and magic check-books that never grow empty. But suppose that, instead of regarding her as a prize in a lottery22, you let her grow up naturally, and taught her the truth about herself, both body and mind; suppose that, instead of dressing23 her in ways deliberately24 contrived25 to emphasize her sex, you put her in a simple uniform, and taught her to be honest and straightforward26, instead of mincing27 and coy; suppose she played athletic28 games with boys of her own age, and invited them to her home, not for "jazz" dancing and stuffing cake and candy, but for the sharing of good music and literature and art—don't you think that maybe this girl might become interested in a lad of her own age, and choose him with some understanding of his real self?
You take it for granted that young people should not marry until they can "afford it." But stop and consider, is not this a relic29 of old days? Always it takes time, and deliberate effort of the reason, to adjust our conventions to new facts; so face this fact—marriage today does not necessarily mean children, it may just mean love. It involves little more expense, because the young people need cost no more together than they cost in the separate homes of their parents. If they are children of the poor, they are already taking care of themselves. If they are children of the moderately well off, their parents expect to support them while they are getting an education; and why can they not just as well live together, and the parents of each contribute their share? Let the parents of the boy give him, not merely what it costs to keep him at home, but also the sums which otherwise the boy would pay to the brothels. By this argument I do not mean that I favor keeping young people financially dependent upon their parents. My own son is working his own way through college, and I should be glad to see every young man doing the same. All that I am saying is that if parents are going to support their children while they are getting an education, they might just as well support them married as single, instead of penalizing30 matrimony by making all allowances cease at that point.
I know a certain ardent31 feminist32, who is all for late marriage for women, and abhors33 my ideas on this subject. She wants women to get a chance to develop their personalities34; whereas I want to sacrifice them to the frantic35 exigencies36 of the male animal! Young things of seventeen and eighteen have no idea what they are, or what they want from life; the mating impulse is a blind frenzy37 in them, and they must be taught to control it, just as they are taught not to kill when they are angry!
In the first place, I point out that young ladies in colleges and in ballrooms38 give a lot of time and thought to sex, even though they do not call it by that inelegant term. I very much question whether, if we should apply our wisdom to the task of getting our young people happily mated before we sent them off to college, we should not get a lot more serious study out of them than we now do, with all their "fussing" and flirting39 and dancing.
Second, I am willing to make heroic moral efforts, where I see any chance of adequate results, but I have examined the facts, and definitely made up my mind that it is not worth while, in our present stage of culture, to preach to the mass of men the doctrine40 that they should abstain41 from sex experience until they are twenty-five or thirty years of age. You may storm at them, but they only laugh at you; you may pass laws, and try to put them in jail, but you only provide a harvest for blackmailers and grafters. As to sacrificing the girl, my answer is simply that I believe in love; and in this I think the girl will agree with me, if you will let her! I have never heard any qualified42 person maintain that it hurts a girl to respond to love at the age of seventeen or eighteen; nor do I think that it hurts a boy, provided that he is taught the virtues43 of moderation and self-restraint. Without these, it will hurt him to eat; but that is no argument for starving him. As for the question of his maturity44 and power to judge, we are able at present to keep him from marrying anybody, so I think we might reasonably hope to keep him from marrying a wanton or a slut. Certainly we might find somebody better than the peroxide blonde he now picks up in front of the moving picture palace.
The question, at what ages we shall advise our young couple to have children, is a separate one, depending upon many circumstances. First, of course, they should not have any until they are able financially to maintain them. As to the age at which it is physically45 advisable, that is a question to be settled by physicians and physiologists46. I myself had the idea that the proper age would be when the woman had attained47 her full stature48; but my friend Dr. William J. Robinson sends me some statistics from the Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, which startle me. This publication for January, 1922, gives the results in five hundred childbirths, in which the mother's age was from twelve to sixteen years inclusive. It appears that pregnancy49 and labor50 at these ages are no more dangerous than in older women; but on the other hand, the duration of the labor is actually shorter, and the size of the children is not inferior. These facts are so contrary to the general impression that I content myself with calling attention to them, and leave the commenting to be done by feminists51 and others who oppose themselves to the idea of early marriage.
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1
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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ridiculing
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的现在分词 ) | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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marital
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| adj.婚姻的，夫妻的 | |
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blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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tenement
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| n.公寓；房屋 | |
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piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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spurn
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| v.拒绝，摈弃；n.轻视的拒绝；踢开 | |
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ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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chaste
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| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
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lewd
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| adj.淫荡的 | |
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inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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quack
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| n.庸医；江湖医生；冒充内行的人；骗子 | |
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proprieties
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| n.礼仪，礼节；礼貌( propriety的名词复数 )；规矩；正当；合适 | |
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burrow
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| vt.挖掘(洞穴)；钻进；vi.挖洞；翻寻；n.地洞 | |
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perversions
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| n.歪曲( perversion的名词复数 )；变坏；变态心理 | |
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pecuniary
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| adj.金钱的；金钱上的 | |
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automobiles
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| n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 ) | |
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lottery
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| n.抽彩；碰运气的事，难于算计的事 | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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mincing
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| adj.矫饰的；v.切碎；切碎 | |
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athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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penalizing
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| 对…予以惩罚( penalize的现在分词 )； 使处于不利地位 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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feminist
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| adj.主张男女平等的，女权主义的 | |
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33
abhors
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| v.憎恶( abhor的第三人称单数 )；（厌恶地）回避；拒绝；淘汰 | |
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personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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exigencies
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| n.急切需要 | |
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frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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ballrooms
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| n.舞厅( ballroom的名词复数 ) | |
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39
flirting
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| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 ) | |
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40
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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41
abstain
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| v.自制，戒绝，弃权，避免 | |
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qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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44
maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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45
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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46
physiologists
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| n.生理学者( physiologist的名词复数 )；生理学( physiology的名词复数 )；生理机能 | |
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47
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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48
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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49
pregnancy
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| n.怀孕，怀孕期 | |
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50
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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51
feminists
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| n.男女平等主义者，女权扩张论者( feminist的名词复数 ) | |
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