s, as often happens, that she knows all about it. Even with the
best equipment, a woman, under present conditions, enters marriage at a
disadvantage. She awakes to the full realization of love more slowly than
a man, and, on the average, at a later age, so that her experiences of the
life of sex before marriage have usually been of a much more restricted
kind than her husband's.[382] So that even with the best preparation, it
often happens that it is not until several years after marriage that a
woman clearly realizes her own sexual needs and adequately estimates her
husband's ability to satisfy those needs. We cannot over-estimate the
personal and social importance of a complete preparation for marriage, and
the greater the difficulties placed in the way of divorce the more weight
necessarily attaches to that preparation.[383]

Everyone is probably acquainted with many cases of the extreme
ignorance of women on entering marriage. The following case
concerning a woman of twenty-seven, who had been asked in
marriage, is somewhat extreme, but not very exceptional. "She did
not feel sure of her affection and she asked a woman cousin
concerning the meaning of love. This cousin lent her Ellis
Ethelmer's pamphlet, _The Human Flower_. She learnt from this
that men desired the body of a woman, and this so appalled her
that she was quite ill for several days. The next time her lover
attempted a caress she told him that it was 'lust.' Since then
she has read George Moore's _Sister Teresa_, and the knowledge
that 'women can be as bad as men' has made her sad." The
"Histories" contained in the Appendices to previous volumes of
these _Studies_ reveal numerous instances of the deplorable
ignorance of young girls concerning the most central facts of the
sexual life. It is not surprising, under such circumstances, that
marriage leads to disillusionment or repulsion.

It is commonly said that the duty of initiating the wife into the
privileges and obligations of marriage properly belongs to the
husband. Apart, however, altogether from the fact that it is
unjust to a woman to compel her to bind herself in marriage
before she has fully realized what marriage means, it must also
be said that there are many things necessary for women to know
that it is unreasonable to expect a husband to explain. This is,
for instance, notably the case as re