Procreation

“ As is the case with mother so with the father, the initial sacrifice in the division of a portion of his body is too small to be considered, but in his case as in the case of the mother, the sacrifice for the coming progeny is only initiated with the act of procreation and continues through a period of fifteen, twenty or even thirty years—sometimes progressively increasing to the last. ”

“ But marriage and procreation are both based on the erotic life. If the erotic life is not sound, then marriage is broken up, practically if not always formally, and the process of procreation is carried out under unfavorable conditions or not at all. ”

“ An inherited sin for the person taking the direction of procreation will be such sexual intercourse from which children cannot be born or when the parents are unable or unwilling to bring up the children born of their marriage. ”

“ Procreation is an avoidable thing for sane persons of even the most furious passions, and the men of the New Republic will hold that the procreation of children who, by the circumstances of their parentage, must be diseased bodily or mentally—I do not think it will be difficult for the medical science of the coming time to define such circumstances—is absolutely the most loathsome of all conceivable sins. ”

“ If a man have fifty wives the knowledge of the father is as distinct as the knowledge of the mother. It is not destroyed, therefore. The great principle of parentage on the part of the husband, on the part of the father, is preserved. Therefore it is more consistent, more reasonable, first for procreation, and secondly for obtaining a knowledge of parentage, that a man should have a plurality of wives than that a woman should have a plurality of husbands. ”

“ Procreation is only the beginning of parentage, and even where the mother is not the direct nurse and teacher of her child, even where she delegates these duties, her supervision is, in the common case, essential to its welfare. ”

“ To these rules there are certainly exceptions which are attributable either to the health of the parents, or to their organic conditions at the time of procreation. Thus: (1) It is seldom that all the children escape the evil influence. (2) In the same family some are attacked, while others are spared. ”

“ Catholics thought that the only goal of sex was procreation. Men were considered ready for marriage only when they could support a family, which was usually at about age 30. Brides were normally virgins, but there was bridal pregnancy of about 20%. ”

“ It is of faith that virginity is preferable to matrimony: "If anyone saith that the marriage state is to be preferred before the state of virginity, let him be anathema." COUNCIL OF TRENT. The religious state is a more usual and a safer way of preserving virginity than a life in the outer world.
3. The invitation to the counsels is general ; it may be accepted by anyone who is not prevented by some particular impediment, as marriage, sickness or home obligations. The three counsels - of poverty, chastity and obedience - constitute the substance of the religious state. ”

“ Many who have but one wife, and several of those who have more than one, take a course to excite adultery, and what is much worse, they often take that course at the most improper and unwise times, and thereby seriously injure their offspring. ”

“ If a man to his daughter, a concubine, p. 41has not granted a marriage portion, has not given her to a husband, after the father has gone to his fate, her brothers according to the capacity of the father’s house, shall grant her a marriage portion and shall give her to a husband.
§ 185. If a man has taken a young child ‘from his waters’ to sonship, and has reared him up, no one has any claim against that nursling.
§ 186. If a man has taken a young child to sonship, and when he took him his father and mother rebelled, that nursling shall return to his father’s house. ”

“ But to the daughters, as many of them as there are, of such conspirators, we will that there shall go only the "falcidia"—the fourth part of the property of the mother if she die intestate; so that they may rather have the moderate alimony of a daughter, than the entire emolument or name of an heir;—for the sentence ought to be milder in the case of those who, as we trust, on account of the infirmity of their sex, are less likely to make daring attempts. ”

“ Impotence and sterility may arise from organic or from functional causes, and may be curable or incurable. Impotence (q.v.) is taken cognisance of by the law courts as a ground of divorce, and might, of course, be urged as a defence in a case of rape. Sterility is not a ground of divorce, but might be a question of importance in cases of legitimacy.
6. Pregnancy.—This subject presents one of the widest fields for medico-legal evidence. The limits of age between which it is possible, the limits of utero-gestation, and the signs of pregnancy may all in turn be the subjects of investigation. ”

“ Under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1859, on a wife’s petition for dissolution of marriage on the ground of adultery coupled with cruelty or desertion, husband and wife are competent and compellable to give evidence as to the cruelty or desertion. ”

“ Ask what ye will, and it shall be given unto you according to my word.
41 And as ye have asked concerning adultery, verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man receiveth a wife in the new and everlasting covenant, and if she be with another man, and I have not appointed unto her by the holy anointing, she hath committed adultery and shall be destroyed.
42 If she be not in the new and everlasting covenant, and she be with another man, she has committed adultery. ”

“ All women to whom I applied for counsel said it was my duty to submit, that husbands expected it, had a right to it, and must have this indulgence whenever they were excited, or suffer, and that in this way alone could wives retain the love of their husbands. I had no alternative but silent, suffering submission to his passion, and then procure abortion or leave him, and thus resign my children to the tender mercies of one with whom it seemed I could not live myself. Abortion was most repulsive to every feeling of my nature, and at times rendered me an object of loathing to myself. ”

“ The husband could obtain a divorce for adultery, the wife could obtain a divorce for adultery coupled with cruelty or desertion for two or more years, and also for incestuous or bigamous adultery, or rape, or unnatural offences. ”

“ The signs of pregnancy are of the utmost importance to the medical jurist. He may be called upon to pronounce upon the virtue of a female, to sustain or rebut a plea for divorce, to determine whether a capital sentence shall be carried out, or to determine whether it is probable that an heir will be born to an estate. ”

“ XXX. Whosoever shall say, that the clergy in holy orders, or regulars having made a solemn profession of chastity, may contract marriage, and that a marriage so contracted is valid, notwithstanding the ecclesiastical law or vow; and that to maintain the contrary is nothing else than to condemn matrimony, and that all may contract marriage who do not feel themselves to have the gift of continence, even though they should have made a vow of it: let him be accursed; since God denies it not to such as rightly ask it, nor will he suffer us to be tempted above what we are able. (See Celibacy.) ”

“ We now come to the consideration of the subject of Contraception, pure and simple, the methods of which contemplate the manifestation of the usual physical sexual relations between husband and wife, accompanied by an avoidance of the union of the male and female elements of reproduction which result in conception. ”

“ If she knows naught of the frailties of all mankind and the Court in particular, I should say as thou art her rightful guardian and the suitor chosen of her father, and 'twas thy wish for her immediate espousal, 'twould best serve thee to use all manner of means to gain her consent, and if this prove abortive, I would abduct the maid and have thy Chaplain ready to marry thee to her; and after he pronounces thee man and wife, what can she do but love thee straightway for thy strong handling; 'tis the way of women. ”

“ Thus, marriage or incestuous intercourse with a grand-uncle, a father’s first cousin, a brother, or a nephew, is punishable by death.1817 Besides these prohibitions there are others applying within a narrower range to relatives on the female side. A man who marries his mother’s sister or his sister’s daughter is strangled. Less severe punishment is inflicted on a person who marries a uterine half-sister, and still less severe—eighty blows—on any one who marries his father’s sister’s daughter, mother’s brother’s daughter, or mother’s sister’s daughter. ”

“ When she has thus obtained a wife for her husband, she carries her home, puts her to bed with her husband, where, having left her, she feasts with the bride's relations. There the children of the first marriage are produced, and the men of the bride's family put each their hands upon these children's heads, and afterwards take the oath in the usual manner, to live and die with them as their own offspring. ”

“ The wife may, with the authorization of her husband, or, on his refusal, with the authorization of the Judge, give her dotal effects for the establishment of the children she may have had by a former marriage. ”

“ If husbands have any regard for the physical welfare of either their wives or offspring, or even their own health, let them refrain 144from all sexual indulgences during the period of the wife’s pregnancy. ”

“ Wives procured according to the first of these methods, although not regarded as slaves, are practically as much so as the others, for like them, at the death of their lord they become nominally, and often really, the wives of his eldest son, except, of course, his own mother, They have, however, the privilege of choosing the next elder son, or of observing ever after a state of celibacy, which but few wo-men would choose, as it is regarded reproachfully. ”

“ In some cases a couple might live in concubinage by consent of their parents, and in the event of a child being born, either a marriage was celebrated or the woman returned to the house of her parents with the infant, which was regarded as belonging to her family. ”

“ And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.
Except it be, etc. . .In the case of fornication, that is, of adultery, the wife may be put away: but even then the husband cannot marry another as long as the wife is living.
19:10. His disciples say unto him: If the case of a man with his wife be so, it is not expedient to marry. ”

“ Where conception has occurred in a married woman, it may be fear for the future of the child, of a lowering of the standard of life of the family, or of the act of parturition, which leads to the practice of abortion; where the pregnant woman is unmarried, fears as to the future of mother and child may also be operative, but the principal motives are the dread of disgrace and the desire to conceal the fact that [259] pregnancy has occurred. ”

“ Servants of God shall call upon Christ to intercede for all Christian people and practice celibacy. Those who turn away from marriage and observe celibacy shall enjoy the privileges of a thegn.
*No Christian man shall marry among his own kin within six degress of relationship or with the widow of a man as nearly related to him as that, or with a near relative of his first wife's. No man shall marry his god-mother, a nun, or a divorced woman. ”

“ COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.—Last of all, parental care in the use of whatever influence can be exerted in the matter of courtship and marriage. Maidens, as well as youths, must, after all, choose for themselves. It is their own lives which they take in their hands as they enter the marriage state, and not their parents ”

“ Woman’s appeal is to man to spare her this suffering and anguish, except when her nature calls, and then will she, for his sake and her own, joyfully meet and bear the cross. It is meet that woman’s appeal should be sustained. I wish to sustain it; and in so doing, while my remarks will bear mainly on Maternity, Paternity will necessarily come under review. Maternity, when a crime, suggests the questions, Who is the criminal? To what extent is he responsible for the consequences? So, in fact, the whole subject of Parentage is open, as involving the conduct and responsibility of both parents. ”

“ As for Instance, suppose a Father enjoins a Daughter that is under Age, not to drink Wine, that she may with the greater Safety preserve her Virginity till she is married; when she comes of Age, and is delivered up to a Husband, she is not bound to her Father’s Injunction. ”

“ The practice of the Catholic Church in not permitting a divorce that will allow either party to marry during the life of the other, is clearly taught by Jesus Christ in the 5th chapter of Matthew: "He who puts away his wife maketh her to commit adultery, and he that marrieth her committeth adultery." ”

“ If we begin with the marriage of father and mother, Cognation will only express the relationship of brothers and sisters; if we take that of the grandfather and grandmother, then uncles, aunts, and their descendants will also be included in the notion of Cognation, and following the same process a larger number of Cognates may be continually obtained by choosing the starting point higher and higher up in the line of ascent. ”

“ A divorce may be obtained provided the injured party begins the suit.
3. Test of Virginity.—The consummation of marriage with a virgin is not necessarily attended with a flow of blood, and the absence of this sign is not the slightest presumption against her former chastity. The true test of virginity is modesty void of any disagreeable familiarity. A sincere Christian faith is one of the best recommendations.
4. Let Every Man Remember that the legal right of marriage does not carry with it the moral right to injure for life the loving companion he has chosen. ”