Elizabeth Blackwell

“ Now, my friends, lust, unchecked, untransfigured by affection, is like fiery alcoholic poison to the human constitution. It constantly grows by indulgence; the more it is yielded to, the fiercer it becomes; an instinct which at first was governable, and susceptible of elevation and enlightened direction and control, becomes through constant indulgence a vicious domination, ungovernable and unrestrainable. When unsubdued it injures the health, produces disease, and grows into an irresistible tyrannical possession, which converts human beings into selfish, cruel, and inhuman devils. ”

“ I state to you as a physician, that there is no fact in physiology more clearly known than the constantly increasing power which the mind can exercise over the body either for good or evil. If you let corrupt servants injure your little children, if you allow your boys and youths to practise self-abuse and fornication at school and college, if you establish one law of divorce for a man and another for a woman, if you refuse to protect the chastity of minors, if you establish brothels, prostitutes, and procurers, you are using the power of the mind over the body for evil. ”

“ Does she care more for her children, for their respectability and welfare, when she is conscious of her own honest past life? Does she love her husband more, and will she strive to make his home brighter and more attractive to him, exercising patience in the trials of her humble life, being industrious, frugal, sober, with tastes that centre in her home? These are vital questions for the welfare of the great mass of the people, and consequently of society and of the nation. ”

“ There is a class of persons, the illogical, whose conscience will not allow them to counsel vice, who state that it is a habit that can be avoided as the use of opium can be avoided, but who in the same breath declare prostitution to be a necessity, and that the greater part of young men away from home will resort to it. Now, if prostitution be a necessity, it must be because fornication is a necessity. What is a necessity? It is something inevitable, because it is rooted in the constitution; it is an unavoidable development of human nature itself. ”

“ To the young woman an early marriage is the natural course of life; to this end she tends, and, consciously or unconsciously, prepares herself to secure it according to the requirements of society. Her unperverted taste is for the young man a little older than herself—a companion she can admire, respect, and, love—but still a companion, not a father. If taught by the silent though still powerful voice of society that harmony of character, of aims, of temperament—i.e., mental attraction—is the indispensable foundation of great and lasting happiness in marriage ”

“ It is the strongest force in human nature. Whatever else disappears, this continues. Undeveloped, no subject of thought, but nevertheless as the central fire of life, Nature guards this inevitable instinct from all possibility of destruction. But as an idea, thought out in all its wide relations, shaped in human practice in all its ennobling influences, it is the latest growth of civilization. In whatever concerns the subject of sex, customs are blindly considered sacred, and evils deemed inevitable. ”

“ All the young women of the middle and upper classes of society, no matter how pure and innocent their natures, are brought by these customs of society into direct competition with prostitutes! The modest grace of pure young womanhood, its simple, refined tastes, its love of home pleasures, its instinctive admiration of true and noble sentiments and actions, although refreshing as a contrast, will not compare for a moment with the force of attraction which sensual indulgence and the excitement of debauch exert upon the youth who is habituated to such intoxications. ”

“ However injurious, therefore, illegitimate but single unions may be to the welfare of society, I leave them entirely aside in these remarks, as not coming under the head of prostitution. I speak of the conversion of soulless lust into a business traffic—of the system of brothels, procurers, and so-called Contagious Diseases Acts—the system which provides for, not checks, vice. I solemnly declare that so far from this system being a necessary part of society, it is the greatest crime that can be committed against our common humanity. ”

“ The introduction of the slave principle (the purchase of the human body) in cheapening women’s labour, has a formidable effect in depressing the wages of working-men. In all systems of industry carried on by slaves the cost of maintenance is, as a rule, the limit of expenditure, the equivalent of wages. Also in the industrial systems of so-called free industry, the maintenance of the labourer again forms a limit beyond which profit cannot be extracted, for no man will consent to labour for less wages than will keep him alive. ”

“ To make brothers love virtue, to make all men love purity, through its incarnation in virtuous daughters, is a grand work to accomplish! The failure of young women in any country, to embody the beauty and strength of virtue is one of the most serious evils that can befall a State. The necessity of cultivating mental purity and respect for the principle of sex exists as strongly in relation to girls as to boys, and it is only by securing this mental purity that young women will unconsciously address themselves to the higher rather than to the lower instincts of their male companions. ”

“ Age after age brings forward varying phases of thought, when some particular facts of life are thrown into unusual prominence, such special development of thought serving to mould the society of that generation, giving it a special stamp, and thus advancing the progress of humanity one step forward. Of all the ideas gradually worked out and gained as the permanent possession of human society, the slowest in growth is the idea of the true relations of the sexes. The instinct of sex always exists as the indispensable condition of life and the foundation of society. ”

“ Any farmer who would have courage to carry on the economy of labour and the reproduction of capital in that way, would farm at a splendid profit.’
For long ages the trade in human beings has been, and is still, carried on. It has only very gradually dawned upon human intelligence, that short-sighted trading customs which destroy the conditions of human development, injure equally the sellers and the sold, and gradually degrade and destroy the societies that practise them. This second foundation of political economy—freedom—still remains unrecognised by the large majority of the human race. ”

“ He has destroyed that grand endowment of Man, that freedom of the youthful Will, which is the priceless possession of innocence and of virtue, and has subjected himself to the slavery of lust. He is no longer his own master; he is the servant of his passions. Those whose interest it is to retain their victim employ every art of drink, of dress, of excess, to urge him on. ”

“ Always remember that the laws of a country possess a really terrible responsibility through the way in which they influence the rising generation. Inequality between the sexes in the law of divorce, tolerance of seduction of minors, the attempt to check sexual disease by the inspection of vicious women, whilst equally vicious men are untouched—all these striking examples of the unjust and immoral attitude of legislation will serve to show how law may become a powerful agent in producing prostitution through its direct attitude towards licentiousness. ”

“ As society advances, as principles of justice and humanity become firmly established, as science and industry prepare the way for the more perfect command of the material world, it will be found that the time has come for the serious consideration of this first and last question in human welfare, for the subject of sex will then present itself as the great aid or obstacle to further progress. The gradually growing conviction will be felt that, as it is the fundamental principle of all society, so it is its crowning glory. ”

“ It is necessary to define clearly the practical form of evil which is now under consideration, and to the effects of which the consciences of men and women must be roused. Ordinary immorality is not the demoralization of the slums—that horrible result of monopoly and speculation in land, where human beings are herded together like pigs—a condition into which the bargains of trade hardly enter. Neither is it the practice of free lust—a practice where unlimited liberty is claimed by both men and women to indulge the impulses of sexual caprice. ”

“ Marriage is the recognised union of two, sharing responsibilities, providing for and educating a family. Prostitution is the indiscriminate union of many, with no object but physical gratification, with no responsibilities, and no care for offspring. It is essential to study the effects, both upon men and women and upon mankind at large, of this great fact of licentiousness, if we are to appreciate the true laws of sexual union in their full force, and the aims, importance, and wide bearing of Moral Education. ”

“ A fundamental error as to the nature of human sex too generally exists amongst us, from failure to recognise that in the human race the mind tends to rule the body, and that sex in the human being is even more a mental passion than a physical instinct. This superficial view dims our perception of the causes which produce the facts around us; it also prevents our recognising the essential difference which exists between human and brute sex, and it blinds us to the imperative necessity of giving human education to this part of our nature. ”

“ All assert their knowledge of ‘Nature and Instinct,’ of ‘Science and History,’ or ‘the tragical plea of material necessity,’ to justify opinions founded on misunderstood data. But the sectional opinions of a portion of the race must necessarily be either imperfect, arrogant, or sentimental, and God confounds the Tower which foolish mortals strive to raise to heaven. All those, both men and women, who retain their reverence for sex, turn away from this unseemly Babel of conceit and short-sightedness, and ponder these things in hearts earnestly seeking truth. ”

“ Customs and institutions which injure the character of women, which weaken their virtue and crush out the germs of higher life, must be the source of deadliest evil to any nation. It behoves the legislators of the present generation to be careful in their social and legal sanction of vice amongst males, lest they be blindly undermining the whole social fabric, amongst women as well as men, in a way which they would least wish to do, if they knew what they were doing. ”

“ The physiological ignorance and moral blindness which actually lead some parents to provide a mistress for their sons, in the hope of keeping them from houses of public debauchery, is an effort as unavailing as it is corrupt. Place a youth on the wrong course instead of on the right one, lead him into the career of sensual indulgence and selfish disregard for womanhood instead of into manly self-control, and the parent has, by his own act, launched his child into the current of vice, which rapidly hurries him beyond his control. ”

“ These women have been taught to regard sexual passion as lust and as sin—a sin which it would be a shame for a pure woman to feel, and which she would die rather than confess. She has not been taught that sexual passion is love, even more than lust, and that its ennobling work in humanity is to educate and transfigure the lower by the higher element. The growth and indications of her own nature she is taught to condemn, instead of to respect them as foreshadowing that mighty impulse towards maternity which will place her nearest to the Creator if reverently accepted. ”

“ From this state of society, where misery will do anything for money, and the satiety of luxury seeks fresh stimulus, speculation in this strongest part of our nature—sex—arises. Its creative use disappears, and it becomes a subject of merchandise. Every variety of effort is made to stimulate and debase the mental quality or sentiment of sex, and the strength of human passion furnishes an exhaustless field for corrupt speculation. ”

“ Every great question of society is a necessary subject of legislation. The necessity of protecting property and the ability to do so, even against the terrible power of slow starvation, is shown by every civilized nation. This experience conclusively proves that chastity also may be protected by legislation, as soon as the growing common-sense of a community awakes to the fact that it also is a property—the most valuable property that a great nation can possess—and that licentiousness is a growing evil that may be checked by legislation. ”

“ Hypocrisy is the vice which, above all others, our Lord denounces with the most awful condemnation, raising the drunkard and the harlot, with His far-seeing, merciful purity, and thrusting the Scribe and Pharisee—secret fornicators—into their place. ‘He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone.’ Hypocrisy is the vice which distinguishes in the most marked degree those nations which dare to call themselves Christian, but who practically deny every principle of Christ’s teaching in the conduct of public and, to a great extent, private affairs. ”

“ It is almost inconceivable how intelligent and well-meaning individuals, knowing the weakness of human nature and its inevitable growth towards good or evil through circumstances, can fail to see the immense moral bearing of legislation. The laws of a country [Pg 296] are powerful educators of the rising generation. They reach all classes; their influence is a national one, silently exercising a never-ceasing effect on the community. Every new act of legislation is a power which will work much more strongly upon the young than the old. ”

“ The parent should become the first and truest friend of the child. This possibility and duty is a great parents’ privilege, too often unknown, and yet it affects the whole future of the child. It is through the love and confidence that exist between them that durable influence is exerted. If the child naturally confides its little joys and sorrows to the ever-ready and intelligent sympathy of the mother, if it grows up in the habit of turning to this warm and helpful influence, the youth will come as naturally with his experiences and plans to the parent as did the little child ”

“ If physical attraction is the sole or chief force which draws young men to young women, then everything which either enhances physical charms, which brings them more prominently forward, or which supplies the lack of physical beauty, must necessarily be resorted to by women, whose nature it is to draw men to them. The stronger the general domination of physical sensation—over character, sympathy, companionship, mutual help, and social growth—becomes amongst men, the more exclusive, intense, and competitive must grow this morbid devotion to dress on the part of women. ”