gards the more fatiguing and
exhausting effects of coitus on a man as compared with a woman.
The inexperienced bride cannot know beforehand that the
frequently repeated orgasms which render her vigorous and radiant
exert a depressing effect on her husband, and his masculine pride
induces him to attempt to conceal that fact. The bride, in her
innocence, is unconscious that her pleasure is bought at her
husband's expense, and that what is not excess to her, may be a
serious excess to him. The woman who knows (notably, for
instance, a widow who remarries) is careful to guard her
husband's health in this respect, by restraining her own ardor,
for she realizes that a man is not willing to admit that he is
incapable of satisfying his wife's desires. (G. Hirth has also
pointed out how important it is that women should know before
marriage the natural limits of masculine potency, _Wege zur
Liebe_, p. 571.)

The ignorance of women of all that concerns the art of love, and their
total lack of preparation for the natural facts of the sexual life, would
perhaps be of less evil augury for marriage if it were always compensated
by the knowledge, skill, and considerateness of the husband. But that is
by no means always the case. Within the ordinary range we find, at all
events in England, the large group of men whose knowledge of women before
marriage has been mainly confined to prostitutes, and the important and
not inconsiderable group of men who have had no intimate intercourse with
women, their sexual experiences having been confined to masturbation or
other auto-erotic manifestations, and to flirtation. Certainly the man of
sensitive and intelligent temperament, whatever his training or lack of
training, may succeed with patience and consideration in overcoming all
the difficulties placed in the way of love by the mixture of ignorances
and prejudices which so often in woman takes the place of an education for
the erotic part of her life. But it cannot be said that either of these
two groups of men has been well equipped for the task. The training and
experience which a man receives from a prostitute, even under fairly
favorable conditions, scarcely form the right preparation for approaching
a woman of his own class who has no intimate erotic experiences.[384] The
frequent result is that he is liable to waver between two opposite courses
of action, both of them mistaken.