Adultery on the part of the husband does not necessarily alter the relations of the children to the parents and to each other. The husband misconducts himself outside the family circle, inchastity of the wife either altogether breaks the family bond or weakens it thru doubt. The purity of the woman and her faithfulness are, therefore, of the greatest racial importance, and it is eminently proper that she should be in the van of moral progress. The highest moral character, says Kant, is that which does the good not out of inclination but from a sense of duty guided by reason, and there is a good reason for female chastity. The masculine morality is as yet very little influenced by reason, hence the male standard of chastity is still very low, so much so that, with meretricious venery rampant, male monogamy is as yet a dream of the idealist.
But is there no reason why the man should be as chaste as the woman? The answer must
be, Yes! There is a valid reason why he should not be inferior to her in the standard of
chastity. If there was, perhaps, no racial reason for his chastity in ancient times, there is a
good reason for him to be chaste since the arrival of venereal diseases in Europe with
Columbus' soldiers. Nowadays the racial interest requires from him the same strict chastity
as from the woman.
The dangers of promiscuous intercourse thru the venereal diseases cannot be overstated.
Noeggerath claimed that, in New York City, of 1000 men 800 have had gonorrhea, 90 per
cent. of all these men have not been thoroly cured and can infect their wives if they ever get
married. As a result three out of every five married women in New York are more or less
infected with gonorrhea. Eighty per cent. of the deaths from inflammatory diseases peculiar
to women, 75 per cent. of all special surgical operations performed on women and 60 per
cent. of all the work done by specialists in diseases of women are the result of this disgusting
disease.
Gonorrheal infection may make a tragedy of married life by destroying the woman's
conceptional capacity and rendering her irrevocably childless. Fifty per cent. or more of all
the infected women are rendered absolutely and irremediably sterile. In addition many are
condemned to a life long invalidism. The aspirations centered in motherhood and children
are thus swept away. Besides mutilating the innocent women gonorrhea destroys the eyesight of innocent
babies. From 70 to 80 per cent. of the ophthalmia which blots out the eyes of babies, and 15
to 25 per cent. of all blindness is caused by this disease. And these things are even more tragic
because the majority of infections is conveyed from chronic gonorrhea without the intention
or even the knowledge of the offender.
The other most appalling venereal disease is syphilis. It may become the cause of all
maladies humanity is afflicted with. In gonorrheal infection the individual risks the wife has
to incur are much more serious than those following syphilis. But the constitutional
disturbances caused by syphilis and the risks to the offspring make this disease one of the
most dreaded affections known to medical science.
The prevalence of syphilis is estimated at 18 per cent. of the adult population. Some
claim that in the large cities, in the better class of families, one third of the sons of adult age
are infected with syphilis. The disease causes 40 per cent. of all miscarriages, and the
mortality of syphilitic children is about 60 per cent. Syphilis is the only disease transmitted
to the offspring in full virulence. Sixty to eighty per cent. of all infected children die before
they are born.
Syphilis is a chronic disease, the duration of which is unlimited. It may remain latent for
several years and then break out. Thus the dangers of venereal diseases beset not only the individual but thru the
individual the entire race. With these dangers staring at him, no young man should even
think of exposing himself, his future wife and offspring to all these risks for the mere pittance
of a short momentary enjoyment in the company of pestiferous individuals. It is a moral crime
to impart these loathsome diseases to one's wife and children. Hence, if strict female chastity was originally demanded in the interest of posterity on
account of the changed law of inheritance, in our present age of syphilis and gonorrhea the
interest of posterity requires the same strict chastity in the man.
There is, therefore, no valid reason for the present double standard of morality of the
sexes.