Virility

“ Compare these facts with what takes place when age, that great operator, extinguishes the principle of virility. When one is old, is he as affectionate, as sensible, as devoted, as intelligent, as he was in youth? do not the general characters of an eunuch gradually come upon him? The genital organs then, even when in repose, regulate in more than one respect and at every period of life, the rest of the human body.
But it is particularly before and during puberty that these organs deserve the most serious attention, for then they possess the most power. ”

“ The thoughtful and inquiring young man will naturally wish to know at this point if this lesson from the beast of the field can be applied in all its details to the human subject; if man, without any artificial or unnatural means would develop a full and complete virility; if like the horse, he can maintain a strict continence for months or even years without suffering any abatement of virility and of physical powers in general. ”

“ Sterility is confined to the female, for if the male be proved capable of accomplishing the act of coition, no farther question can arise as to his virility.
Impotence may be Absolute or Relative, that is to say, the parties may be incapable of cohabiting with each other, and yet they may each accomplish the venereal congress, and enjoy a fruitful intercourse with others ”

“ Similar considerations prevail in respect of marriages in which the husband has been exhausted by earlier sexual excesses, so that he retains no more than remnants of virility, whilst his semen is of doubtful fertilizing power. ”

“ I have no doubt whatever that a real fault of body, and not of mind, in other words a disease, is intended here,—a disease that robbed the sufferers of virility, who then betrayed this impotence by the condition and appearance of body and countenance. This indeed is fully shown by the context, from which it may also be gathered that the sufferer who felt himself touched by this vice, has a feeling of shame.... But if it is the taint of the pathics that is to be understood here, as I see is conjectured to be the case by some commentators, this taint could not be guessed at from the face ”

“ The standard of virility is unquestionably an individual problem. It depends upon the various factors that contribute to good health and longevity. It may be stated that the boy who abused his procreative function, during the period of immaturity, will not enjoy, during the mature period of his sexual life, a normal standard of vigor, nor will he carry the ability into old age, to the same relative degree, as he would, and as he had the innate promise to do—if he had led a normal continent existence. ”

“ The conceited fathers who imagine that the bringing into life of twins is a symptom of their powerful virility must learn that a mere chemical phenomenon called osmosis is responsible for the over-fertility of some wives. ”

“ In cases of sterility, different means have been employed to discover whether the defect was to be imputed to the man or the woman. Of these, inspection is the chief; and indeed, if the sterility be occasioned by an external fault in the conformation, this is sufficient. But if the defect is in the internal organs, it is almost impossible to discover or remove it. There are men, to all appearance well formed, who want the genuine sign of a proper conformation; and others who have it in so slight a degree as to make the mark of virility extremely equivocal. ”

“ Sometimes I quite startle people with my psychic power.
Fothergil Finch was here the other evening — you know fothergil Finch, the poet, don't you? — and I astounded him utterly by reading his inmost thoughts.
He had just finished reading one of his poems — a vers libre poem, you know; all about Strength and Virility, and that sort of thing. Fothergil is just simply fascinated by Strength and Virility, though you never would think it to look at him — he is so — so — well, if you get what I mean you'd think to look at him that he'd be writing about violets instead of cave men. ”

“ This biological phase does not represent merely a cessation of function and final atrophy of the reproductive organs, but also a transformation of the whole organism. In Middle Europe the sexual maturity of men begins about the eighteenth year, and their virility reaches its acme at forty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Much the same obtains to-day. To a certain extent we seek to preserve the virginity of our daughters; but is there any limit to the precautions with which a jealous husband will fence about his wife? In short, virginity concerns alone her who loses it; is any man's for the taking. Chastity is another person's property.
This slight survey of virginity would be incomplete without a reference to the operation of infibulation [18] —the artificial adhesion of the labia majora by means of a ring or stitches with a view to the prevention of sexual intercourse. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By a supernatural power, because they say that the mother requires not only to supply the matter, which is the menstrual blood, but also the semen, which, being mingled with that of the male, has an active power in generation. And since in the Blessed Virgin there was no resolution of semen, by reason of her inviolate virginity, they say that the Holy Ghost supernaturally bestowed on her an active power in the conception of Christ's body, which power other mothers have by reason of the semen resolved. ”

“ Therefore, in the name of God and the Holy Catholic Church, we decree that, hereafter, as is also provided by the ecclesiastical canons, no one, either by force or consent, shall take as a wife, any virgin devoted to God, or any widow who has assumed the habit of any order; or any one who is performing penance; or any near relative of their own; or any one with whom his connection might be branded with infamy; because that cannot be a true marriage, which from good becomes evil, and which, under a false name, is nothing more than incest and fornication. ”

“ Variations on the Rule.—It should never be forgotten that all these rules are subject to variation, and that where one woman may have a series of miscarriages so close together that she mistakes them for heavy, irregular menstrual flows, and never realizes she is pregnant, another may bear a living child the first time after her infection, or still another woman after one miscarriage may have a child so nearly normal that it may attain the age of twenty or older, before it is suspected that it has hereditary syphilis. ”

“ On the other hand, integrity of the hymen is no proof of virginity, apart from the obvious fact that there may be intercourse without penetration.... The hymen may be of a yielding or folding type, so that complete penetration may take place and yet the hymen be afterwards found unruptured. It occasionally happens that the hymen is found intact at the end of pregnancy.”1
And while the foregoing is the exception rather than the rule, it goes far to prove the fallibility of the physical, tangible test.
To most of us, virginity is a quality supposedly prized at all times and by all races. ”

“ Where no means have been used to prevent conception, and the young wife has remained childless for a period of three years, there is adequate ground for a reasonable fear that causes exist, either in the husband or in the wife, which are likely to result in permanent sterility, and then no time should be lost to discover and remove the cause or causes.
The earlier years of married life are usually more fruitful than the years later on. Even where marriage is contracted after twenty-five years of age, the tendency towards sterility is easily perceptible. ”

“ The method is quite commonly practised, but it is unreliable in multiple connections, and where the man has not complete control over himself. It leaves the woman at the mercy of the man for protection against impregnation.
2. Sheath or Condom ("French Letter") .—This prevents both conception and infection (excepting in parts not covered by the sheath) , but sheaths are apt to break, and sometimes a man infects himself whilst removing the sheath. Sheaths impose an impermeable medium between husband and wife, destroy contact, and may thereby prevent the joy of sexual intercourse. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Women who commit fornication and destroy their embryos, and those who are accessories with them, so that they abort the foetus from the womb, are by an ancient ordinance excommunicated from the church until death. ”

“ It is estimated that forty-five per cent. of sterile marriages are due to that seemingly mild disease which is regarded as no worse than a cold and which has been contracted either by the man or the woman. This disease does not disqualify the woman alone, as was formerly thought, for recent investigations have proven that twenty-five per cent. of the sterile marriages are due to sterility of the male. ”

“ Should a young man who has had a venereal disease in a chronic form ever marry?—Few questions are more important and few more difficult to answer. The right of being a husband and father may be annulled by inherited defects or acquired conditions. The wife and child have incontrovertible rights. The specific disease germs producing gonorrhea have been found in the genital vessels and ducts ten years after the victim considered himself cured, and the germs producing syphilis have been found in a man’s brain twenty-two years after he considered himself cured. Sixty-five per cent. ”

“ Based on the medical knowledge available to us, we believe that it is reasonable to conclude that the life activity of procreation...is substantially limited for an asymptomatic HIV-infected individual. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Way of Death.—Observe, that directly the law of God is broken, and wherever promiscuous intercourse between the sexes takes place, gonorrhoea, syphilis, and every other form of venereal disease is seen in hideous variety. It is only true to say that thousands of both sexes are slain annually by these horrible diseases. What must be the moral enormity of a sin, which, when committed, produces in vast numbers of cases such frightful physical and moral destruction as that which is here portrayed? ”

“ My experience in the mysteries of sterility in women has informed me of yet another cause of only-child-sterility, met with in cases in which the only child was born after several years of unsuccessful marital intercourse. 563In most of these cases, the wife has finally been impelled to seek a substitute for her husband, whose reproductive powers have proved insufficient; having succeeded in obtaining the child she desires, the wife does not again wander in strange pastures, and consequently remains sterile. ”

“ Not only do women become sterile in consequence of a miscarriage, and then, longing for offspring, find themselves permanently incapacitated for conception, but, in other cases, impregnation, or rather the attachment of the ovum to the uterus, being but imperfectly effected, or the mother's system being so insidiously undermined, the children that are subsequently brought forth are unhealthy, deformed, or diseased. ”

“ The fact, therefore, is now scientifically established that the embryo from the first moment of conception or fecundation is a human being, having a human immortal soul.
II. Now we come to the direct study of abortion. Abortion, or miscarriage, strictly means the expulsion of the fœtus before it is viable, i.e., before it is sufficiently developed to continue its life outside of the maternal womb. The period of arrival at viability is usually after the twenty-eighth week of gestation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We can allow psychopaths with hereditary taints, or even invalids of both sexes, to contract sterile marriages, by requiring them to avoid conception by some means or other, in the name of social hygiene and morality. In such cases dislocation of the tubes has a definite effect, and if we consider the negligence and weakness of mind of such individuals, we should do well to recommend this proceeding whenever there is a clear indication for inducing sterility. ”