Viscount Bertrand Edward Dawson Dawson

“ LOVE—MARRIAGE—BIRTH CONTROL May I make certain preliminary observations? Painters and poets depict Love to us in golden hues and arouse in us happy and sympathetic, and, I trust, reminiscent response, helping us to realise that life without the love of man and woman would be like the world without sunshine. ”

“ Now we all admit it is right to control the process of childbirth, and to save the mother as much pain as possible. It is no more unnatural to control conception by artificial means than to control childbirth by artificial means. ”

“ Quite a large family could easily result from quite a few sexual unions. For the rest the couple should be celibate. Any intercourse not having procreation as its intention is “sexual union as an end in itself,” and therefore by inference condemned by the Lambeth Conference.
[18] Think of the facts of life. Let us recall our own love—our marriage, our honeymoon. Has not sexual union over and over again been the physical expression of our love without thought or intention of procreation? Have we all been wrong? ”

“ In opposition to the teaching which under the name of science and religion encourages married people in the deliberate cultivation of sexual union as an end in itself, we steadfastly uphold what must always be regarded as the governing consideration of Christian marriage. One is the primary purpose for which marriage exists—namely, the continuation of the race through the gift and heritage of children ”

“ Imagine a young married couple in love with each other—the parents, say, of one child, who feel they cannot afford another child for, say, three years—being expected to occupy the same room and to abstain for two years. ”

“ Absence of birth control means late marriages, and these carry with them irregular unions and all the baneful consequences.
It is idle to decry illicit intercourse and interpose obstacles to marriage at one and the same time.
But, say many whose opinions are entitled to our respect: “Yes—birth control may be necessary, but [22] the only birth control which is justifiable is voluntary abstention from connubial relations.” Such abstention would be either ineffective or, if effective, impracticable and harmful to health and happiness. ”

“ If one watches the woman with one child and all maternity finished before thirty, and compare her at forty with the woman of the same age who has had, say, four children at proper intervals, who usually has the advantage in preservation of youth and beauty? Not the former.
On the other hand, it must be admitted that baby after baby every year or eighteen months wears and often exhausts a woman’s strength. The inference is that the use of birth control is good, its abuse bad. ”

“ My reply would be, passion is a worthy possession; most men, who are any good, are capable of passion.
You all enjoy ardent and passionate love in art and literature. Why not give it a place in real life? ”

“ If sexual union is a gift of God it is worth learning how to use it. Within its own sphere it should be cultivated so as to bring physical satisfaction to both, not merely to one. The attainment of mutual and reciprocal joy in their relations constitutes a firm bond between two people and makes for durability of their marriage tie.
Reciprocity in sex love is the physical counterpart of sympathy. More marriages fail from inadequate and clumsy sex love than from too much sex love. ”

“ You may guide it into healthy channels—but an outlet it will have, and if that outlet is inadequate or unduly obstructed, irregular channels will be forced.
We uphold the control of sex love outside marriage by the individual—and that we are right in so doing is incontestable. But let us realise that in practice self-control has a breaking point, and that if in any community marriage is difficult or late of attainment, an increase of irregular unions will inevitably result. ”

“ For those of us who are of mature years the gap is bridged by the tender associations of our childhood and the memory of parents, for whom no such gap existed, and whose faith and character have left indelible impressions on our lives. ”

“ Why some people look askance at passion is because they are confusing it with sensuality. Sex love without passion is a poor, lifeless thing. Sensuality, on the other hand, is on a level with gluttony—a physical excess—detached from sentiment, chivalry, or tenderness. ”

“ My desire, however, on this occasion is rather to consider sex love in relation to marriage. The first point I wish to make is that people need more knowledge of the scientific bearings of sex relations and more clearly defined guidance of their rightful purport and practice. They are imperfectly provided with both. We talk about instructing the young when we are neither clear nor agreed amongst [16] ourselves, and the young are endangered as much by crudity as by absence of instruction. ”

“ But the evils of excessive birth control are very real. There is first the individual—every woman is better in body and mind for child bearing—the periodic completion of the maternal cycle brings out the best, preserves youth and maintains vital contact with life. Maternity gives to woman her most beautiful attributes. ”

“ It implies that where unfortunately people cannot be continent that marriage gives the best way out—enables them to get relief within the pale of virtue. This attitude affords to sex love no positive purport or merit of its own, and is in striking conflict with the facts of life through the ages—facts which carry social approval. ”

“ The aim of statesmanship is rather to seek out causes and ponder over remedies, and prominent among remedies is surely the study of the significance and purport of sex love in a well-ordered and Christian community and provision for its healthy outlet. ”

“ On the other hand, emigration into foreign lands would seem to be a source of weakness to a nation. The feeding, clothing and educating of a young Briton cost the nation a definite sum of money, say, [8] £400; if at the age of twenty, when he is ready to produce, that young Briton emigrates to a foreign state, he is a definite loss to the country of his birth and the country of his adoption is the gainer. ”

“ If they are used to render unions childless or inadequately fruitful they are harmful. There are grounds for thinking that unrealisation of maternity favours sterility.
Generally speaking, birth control before the first child is inadvisable. On the other hand, the justifiable use of birth control is to limit the number of children, and to spread out their arrival in such a way as to serve their true interests and those of their home. ”

“ For is it not time that a question which deeply concerns not only the thought, but the practice of the thinking portions of communities should be fully considered and its strength and its weakness disclosed by full discussion? ”

“ Although becoming estranged in thought from the Church, it is possessed of deep religious feeling and, firm on the rock foundation of faith, is trying to build a superstructure more in accord with the progress of revelation, not only in religion, but in science, and the needs of the world in which it moves and has its being. ”

“ The lack of proper understanding is in no small measure responsible for the unfulfilment of (connubial) happiness, and every degree of discontent and unhappiness may from this cause occur, leading to rupture of the marriage bond itself. How often do medical men have to deal with these difficulties, and how fortunate if such difficulties are disclosed early enough in married life to be rectified. ”

“ There are signs of a public opinion forming which will condemn the selfishness of marriages without their proper heritage of children, but such public [27] opinion will not be strengthened by an indiscriminate condemnation of birth control. ”

“ And then, perhaps, illness, and it may be death—and when it is too late to produce another.
Of the many tragedies I met in the war none exceeded that attaching to the loss of only children. It often means the end of all things; nothing to live for—just blank despair. ”

“ A married couple who have produced four children in twenty years cannot be said to have ignored the precept “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth” because they have so selected the times for the conceptions of their children as to enable them to give those children a better upbringing rather than have selfishly left the sequence of their offspring to blind chance. ”

“ To limit the size of a family to, say, four children during a child-bearing period of 20–25 years, would be to impose on a married couple an amount of abstention which for long periods would almost be equivalent to celibacy, and when one remembers that owing to economic reasons the abstention would have to be most strict during the earlier years of married life when desires are strongest, I maintain a demand is being made which for the mass of people it is impossible to meet ”

“ One of the difficulties of this subject is that those who are called upon to give counsel are apt to forget the strength of the forces to be dealt with, for it is during youth especially that sex attractions are so powerful, and, may I add, so delightful. Middle-aged people may be divided into three classes. ”

“ The world looks to its leaders for reasoned guidance, not for assertion which may be but the husk of a thought that has gone. What is wanted is reasoned consideration, not unreasoned condemnation. For churchmen and statesmen alike, opportunism helps in situations which are small, but never in those which are large ”

“ With the economic soundness of this view others are better fitted to deal, but no economic considerations would outweigh the importance of child life inspiring the homes of the land, and if the number and sequence of children can be regulated by the parents’ circumstances, these homes will increase in number, will start when parents are younger and confer greater benefits alike on the family and the State. ”

“ If you say to a young husband and wife with their one or two children, “Do you like to contemplate that when you both leave life your country will, through your action, be worse off than when you entered life?” that is an appeal to patriotism, and likely to be a successful appeal. ”

“ When anæsthetics were first used at childbirth there was an outcry on the part of many worthy and religious people that their use under such circumstances was unnatural and wicked, because God meant woman to suffer the struggles and pains of childbirth. ”

“ The argument that the nation should foster large families in order more quickly to people the untenanted portions of the Empire, and so add to the strength and wealth of the British Dominions, requires serious attention, not in isolation, but in conjunction with other considerations, and calls forth varying opinions from economists. ”

“ The reasons which lead parents to limit their offspring are sometimes selfish, but more often honourable and cogent. The desire to marry and to rear children well equipped for life’s struggle, limited incomes, the cost of living, burdensome taxation, are forcible motives ”

“ It is said to be unnatural and intrinsically immoral. This word unnatural perplexes me. Civilisation involves the chaining of natural forces and their conversion to man’s will and uses. Much of medicine and surgery consists of means to overcome nature. ”

“ So it has set out on a voyage of inquiry, and finding some things which are doubtful and others which are insufficient, is searching for forms of expression more in harmony with the realities of life and knowledge. ”

“ Amongst the letters are intimate human documents which pathetically disclose, as does professional experience, how frequently happiness is marred by ignorance of either the principles or the [6] methods which should condition the true conception of sexual relationships. ”

“ That the Church recognises this is shown by the statement that marriage was instituted to prevent sin. In considering the problem of illicit intercourse and its attendant evils the social conditions that make for a wholesome life are of more efficiency than Acts of Parliament to suppress vice. ”