The sexual crisis : a critique of our sex life / by Grete Meisel-Hess ; authorized translation by Eden and Cedar Paul.

  • Grete Meisel-Hess
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sexual crisis : a critique of our sex life / by Grete Meisel-Hess ; authorized translation by Eden and Cedar Paul. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    stances are necessarily rare, for how should one whose womanly destiny confines her to the desert of sexual renunciation find in that void the energy essential to any kind of active work? It is perfectly true that the physical changes incidental to motherhood often lead to extensive disturbances of the creative powers. The interruptions, however, are but temporary. During pregnancy and lactation most of a woman’s strength must undoubtedly be devoted to these specific feminine functions, and a wise social econ- omy will take into account the tribute thus paid by women to the species and will discharge its obligations to those who become mothers by providing them with adequate remuneration. But motherhood need be no more than an episode in the long term of a woman’s life; and before and after she devotes herself to this function she can find abundant time for other socially useful work. What has once been thoroughly learned is never forgotten, and when the exacting claims which her children at first make upon a mother’s time have been satisfied to the full, she will be able to resume, and perhaps with enhanced energy, the activities of earler days. Until recently the opponents of the woman’s movement have been fond of saying that the woman who sought emancipa- tion was animated by the desire to escape the burdens of child- bearing and child-rearing, by the selfish wish ‘‘to live her own life.’? Since the woman’s movement in Germany has given birth to the Bund fiir Mutterschutz [Union for the Protection of Mother- hood], and since day by day the woman’s movement manifests it- self more and more definitely as a motherhood movement, the futility of this accusation requires no demonstration. The imputation of a desire for childlessness, though inappli- eable to the intellectual woman, may be directed with some justice against the intellectual man. Almost all men, indeed, dislike father- hood in so far as it involves for them the smallest personal dis- comfort. It is only when the whole mass of suggestions involved in the conception of ‘‘family life’’ take effect upon a man’s mind that he becomes inspired to play the father’s part. One of fine type will love even his illegitimate children, once he has produced
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