The choice of a mate.

  • Ludovici, Anthony M. (Anthony Mario), 1882-1971.
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The choice of a mate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    464/546 (page 434)
    as it is hardly likely to denote anything more than an “ average ” based on material containing a high proportion of unhealthy cases. Dr. J. H. P. Paton gives me convincing support in this. His material consisted of about 400 schoolgirls, drawn from the “ well-to-do classes ”, and he says : “ Menstruation usually commences about the age of 13 or 14 in healthy girls” 1 and he adds : “A high level of general health, attained before puberty and maintained after it, is undoubtedly the chief agent in securing normal menstruation.” 2 Dr. Alice E. Sanderson Clow, in a paper already quoted, after finding that 57.04 per cent of her 1137 schoolgirls started men struating before 14, and that only 30.65 per cent of her 300 training-college girls started before 14, makes these significant remarks :— “ Although the standard of health among the latter is good, the schoolgirls are, on the whole, of better physique. It would seem, therefore, that earlier development of the generative organs is associated with physical fitness.” 3 Dr. Kathleen Vaughan, moreover, who is untiring in her advocacy of means and methods for making childbirth easier, says of the female pelvis, “ It is the most actively growing part of the whole body ... its shape is determined by the pull of the muscles attached to it while it is soft. At 14 years of age it is fully formed for good or ill .” 4 Another independent witness on the same side—but the evidence is sparse and difficult to find—is Dr. Samuel R. Meaker, Professor of Gynaecology at Boston University. In his Studies of Female Genital Hypoplasia, in which it is important to remember that he was dealing with American material (i.e. women of whom Dr. Gaillard Thomas, an eminent gynaecologist, has declared “ only about 4 per cent were physiologically fitted to become wives and mothers ” 5 ), he says :— “ Hypoplasia of the female reproductive organs is a common condition. . . . Of 100 wives whose marriages were sterile, 42 1 The italics are mine. A.M.L. 2 Op. cit., p. 444. 3 Op. cit., p. 446. Dr. W. Feldmann (T.J.C., p. 237) says he finds evidence to the effect that the old Talmud sages believed that “ strong girls show signs [of puberty] earlier, weak girls later ”. i B.M.J., 22.10.32. The italics are mine. A.M.L. 5 Arabella Keneally : Feminism and Sex Extinction (London, 1922, p. 135). Other evidence of the sexual sub-parity of American women has already been given in a previous chapter. See Part II, Chap. Ill, notes included.