The choice of a mate.

  • Anthony Ludovici
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details
    473/546 (page 443)
    MORBID RESULTS OF WAITING the action of cestrin, in the absence of corpus luteum influence, causes hyperplasia of the endometrium, and that, if oestrin con tinues to act unchecked (as it does in spinsters and non-parous women) the hypoplasia finally results in the development of fibromyomatous growths. 1 So that again here we find uterine cancer and fibroids associated as gross manifestations of the morbid conditions resulting from the absence of normal functioning, and we must again look away from these acute and dramatic results to dwell on the sub-acute and less obvious degenerative changes which, while they may never lead a young woman to the operating table, nevertheless must impair her sexual vigour, freshness and normality. Now when, in addition to all this, we are told that dysmenor rhea, or painful menstruation “ is commoner amongst single than married women, and amongst the sterile than the fertile,” 1 2 when, moreover, we learn that “ after childbearing menstruation be comes less painful ”, 3 when, finally, we hear that in an investiga tion into the menstruation of 6000 schoolgirls it was found :— (a) That at the early period of menstruation, a smaller pro portion of girls suffer pain than later ; (b) That the rise of incidence of pain is steady and gradual throughout the menstrual histories studied ; and (c) That the evidence of disturbed general health and happiness also increases progressively with length of menstrual history. 4 When, I say, we hear all this, I submit that there is no alternative but to conclude that waiting for normal functioning after the onset of the catamenia is injurious to girls, and that when this waiting is prolonged, as it is to-day, to the extent of ten to twelve years, it is actually dangerous. For it cannot be too greatly emphasized that it is the best girls, that is to say, the most normally equipped genetically, and the most ardent, who are likely to be the greatest sufferers, and to whom most damage is done by procrastination. The fact that the last findings quoted point to a deterioration of function as age increased, while the girls were still at school, 5 leaves no possibility of doubt that the number of years after the onset of catamenia, during which a girl may wait for marriage 1 Med, Press, 5.7.33, p. 3. 2 E.M., IX. Drs. Christopher Martin and Hilda Shufflebotham. 3 Bland Sutton and Giles (op. cit., p. 41). 4 Menstruation in Schoolgirls (Lancet, 5.7.30, pp. 57-62). 6 The extensive material (6000 girls) should be borne in mind in considering the weight of this evidence.