So much for the unmarried man, the bachelor. We now come to the married man. To even venture to suggest that strict monogamy is not applicable, suitable, healthy or even possible for all men, is a risky undertaking indeed. You run the risk not only of being branded as immoral and depraved by the ignorant and well meaning fools, who do not know, and do not wish to learn, the difference between the discussion of a thing and its advocacy, but you run a greater risk: you run the risk of having your work, to which you have given your best and most earnest thought, declared obscene and unmailable by our ignorant and autocratic obscurantist censors, who do not know the difference between obscenity and a high class scientific discussion of a sexual subject.
But I believe the time has come to brave the misunderstandings of the stupid and the
wrath of the vicious, and to tell the truth as we see it, regardless of consequences. And with
the truth as our sole guide, we will say that it is impossible for some men to live a strictly
monogamic life and we have therefore no right to demand of them strict compliance with a
strictly monogamic standard.
A number of men complained to me bitterly and with deep self reproach of their
complete lack of libido or the complete impotentia coeundi with their wives. Of course I do not
speak here of cases where the man and woman are mismated, where the woman has some
disagreeable pelvic disease, or a bad odor from the mouth, or where the man has a dislike for
his wife. Such cases are so common as to be commonplace and vulgar. No, I refer to cases
where the man loved his wife, loved her fully, solely and sincerely, would have suffered to the
end in silence rather than to cause her any pain, would rather have castrated himself than
to part from his wife and still complained that he had neither desire for his wife nor any
ability to perform the act with her.
He had a desire for another woman; not any woman in
particular, just a woman. And it was not viciousness on the man's part for he fought against
it, the proof of which is to be found in the fact that he came to be treated for his affliction.
And with another woman he was perfectly potent. And the strangest part strange to one
who has not made a study of the subject, but not strange to him who has come in contact
with a number of such cases of it is, that after short temporary relations with other women
both the man's potentia and his libido for his wife returned with all their former, if not even
with greater vigor.
Now, in a case like this, what shall we do? Shall we insist upon the man's remaining true
to his marriage vows, in spite of the fact that this may lead to his and his wife's illness and
misery, home disruption and divorce? The uncompromising moralist, who believes that man
was made for morals and not morals for man, and who is in our opinion very frequently very
immoral, because heartless and cruel, will answer: Yes, he dare not break his marriage vows.
We will very gently whisper: Yes, he dare, and for his own and his wife's happiness, he shall.
If the wife is wise, she will whisper this advice herself.
There is another class of cases. A man comes to us and tells us that he loves his wife,
attends to his marital duties normally, his libido and his power are unimpaired, and still he
does not feel satisfied; he feels tired after the act, and disinclined to work; the feeling of
springiness and buoyancy that he used to have is entirely lacking. If he is a man doing
creative work, he complains of a lack of "inspiration". And some men become actually unable
to work. If they force themselves, the work is of poor quality, mechanical, artificial.
A temporary change sometimes works wonders. What shall we do? Shall we sacrifice the man's
work and talent at the altar of an artificial man made morality? The answer will depend upon
who the answerer is a narrow medievalist or a modern thinker.
I will present the following propositions: The strictly monogamic standard is not a chimera, not an abstract ideal impossible of
realization in practice; it is being lived up to now, and the cases in which it is followed are not
such exceptional rarities. Ante nuptial chastity in man is quite feasible in a society in which marriages take place
early.