ual level than (normal) woman. This senseless pride in what
is merely a defect of temperament where it exists has poisoned the marital
relations of many men and women, and has led women into marrying when they
were temperamentally unfitted for such a relation, and quite unable to make
anyone happy in it. Nor ought they to be too much blamed, since they are
often unaware of what they ought to be prepared to give in marriage and
firmly convinced that their preposterous ignorance is in some inexplicable
way a virtue. Why it should be admirable, or even commonly honest, to
undertake duties of whose nature you are ignorant, neither men nor women
seem ever to have decided, and the illusion is beginning to pass. But it is
still not understood that the woman who is not temperamentally asexual may
easily be made so by being forced when she is not ready, and physically
hurt when a little patience and tenderness would have saved her. Forel,
Havelock, Ellis and others have insisted on this, but their books are
unfortunately not easily accessible to the general public; and something
may be added to the more widely read productions of Dr. Stopes.[H] Not
only the physiological but the psychological side of the problem has to be
considered, and it would be hard to decide which is the more important or
which the _vera causa_ of the other's reaction. Scientists may perhaps tell
us some day: here I want only to point out that there is a spiritual factor
in the case which needs at least to be recognized.

[Footnote H: _Married Love_, _Wise Parenthood_, and _Radiant Motherhood_.
By Marie Carmichael Stopes.]

Is passion a cause or an effect? In other words, should physical union be
the expression of spiritual union? Is it the "outward and visible sign of
an inward and spiritual grace?" Or is it a means by which that grace is
achieved? I think the first instinct of most women would be to say that
spiritual union should be _expressed_ by physical union, and that unless
this spiritual union exists the physical union is "wrong." And yet everyone
who stops to think will admit that the expression of an emotion deepens
it. One can "work oneself up into a rage" by shouting and swearing. One can
deepen love by expressing love. It is noticeable that the whole case for
birth control has repeatedly been argued from the ground that the act of
physical union not only expresses but intensifies and increases love.

Marriage is the most difficult of human re