Moral Bankruptcy and Mahatma Gandhi - IV

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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Moral Bankruptcy and Mahatma Gandhi - IV   

 

Having dealt with the indiscipline of morals and its aggravation by the use of contraceptives and its terrible results, the author proceeds to examine the remedies. I must pass over the portions that deal with legislative measures, their necessity and yet utter inefficiency. He then discusses the necessity, by a careful education of public opinion of the duty of chastity for the married, the duty of marriage for that vast mass of mankind that cannot for ever restrain their animal passions, the duty, having once married, of conjugal fidelity and the duty of continence in marriage. He examines the argument against chastity that its precept is against the physiological nature of man and woman and injurious to the happy equilibrium of their health that it is an intolerable attack on the freedom and autonomy of the individual, his right to happiness and to live his life is his own way. The author contests the doctrine that ‘the organ of generation is like the rest’ requiring satisfaction. He says, If it were an organ like the others, how could we explain the absolute inhibitory power which the will possesses over it? Or the fact that the awakening of sensuality, which pharisaism calls the sexual necessity, is the result of the innumerable excitements which our civilization provides for young boys and girls several years before normal adult age? I cannot resist the temptation of copying the following valuable medical testimony collected in the book in support of the proposition that self-restraint is not only not harmful but necessary for the promotion of health and perfectly possible:

“The sexual instinct,” says Estelle, professor at Tubingen University, “is not so blindly all-powerful that it cannot be controlled, and even subjugated entirely, by moral strength and reason. The young man, like the young woman, should learn to control himself until the proper time. He must know that robust health and ever renewed vigour will be the reward of this voluntary sacrifice. “One cannot repeat too often that abstinence and the most absolute purity are perfectly compatible with the laws of physiology and morality, and that sexual indulgence is no more justified by physiology and psychology than by morality and religion.” “The example of the best and noblest among men,” says Sir Lionel Beale, professor at the Royal College in London, “has at times proved that the most imperious of instincts can be effectively resisted by a strong and serious will, and by sufficient care as to manner of life and occupation. Sexual abstinence has never yet hurt any man when it has been observed, not only through exterior restrictive causes” but as a voluntary rule of conduct. Virginity, in fine, is not too hard to observe” provided that it is the physical expression of a certain state of mind. . . . Chastity implies not only continence, but also purity of sentiments, the energy which is the result of deep convictions.” “Every kind of nervous activity,” says the Swiss psychologist Forel, who discusses sexual anomalies with moderation equal to his knowledge, “is increased and strengthened by exercise. On the other hand, inactivity in a particular region reduces the effects of the exciting causes which correspond to it. “All causes of sexual disturbance increase the intensity of desire. By avoiding these provocations it becomes less sensitive” and the desire gradually diminishes.

The idea is current among young people that continence is something abnormal and impossible, and yet the many who observe it prove that chastity can be practiced without prejudice to the health.” “I know,” says Ribbing, “a number of men of 25, 30, and older than that, who have observed perfect continence, or who when they married had done so up to that time. Such cases are not rare; only they don’t advertise themselves. “I have received many confidences from students, healthy both in body and mind” who have remonstrated with me for not having sufficiently insisted on the ease with which sensual desires can be ruled.” “Before marriage, absolute continence can and ought to be observed by young men,” says Dr. Acton. “Chastity no more injures the body than the soul,” declares Sir James Paget, Physician to the English Court; “Discipline is better than any other line of conduct.” “It is a singularly false notion,” writes Dr. E. Perier, “and one which must be fought against, since it besets not only the children’s mind, but that of the fathers as well: the notion of imaginary dangers in absolute continence. Virginity is a physical, moral, and intellectual safeguard to young men.” “Continence,” says Sir Andrew Clarke, “does no harm, it does not hinder development, and it increases energy and enlivens perception. Incontinence weakens self-control, creates habits of slackness, dulls and degrades the whole being, and lays it open to diseases which can be transmitted to several generations.

To say that incontinence is necessary to the health of young men is not only an error, but a cruelty. It is at once false and hurtful.” “The evils of incontinence are well-known and undisputed,” writes Dr. Surbled: “those produced by continence are imaginary; what proves this is the fact of the many learned and voluminous works devoted to the explanation of the former, while the latter still await their historian. As to these latter there are but vague assertions, which hide themselves, for very shame, in mere talk, but which will not endure the daylight.” “I have never seen,” writes Dr. Montegazza in La Physiologies de glamour, “a disease produced by chastity.... All men, and especially young men, can experience the immediate benefits of chastity.” Dr. Dubois, the famous professor of neuropathology at Berne, affirms that “there are more victims of neurasthenia among those who give free rein to their sensuality than among those who know how to escape from the yoke of mere animalism”; and his witness is fully confirmed by that of Dr. Fere, Physician at the Bicetre Hospital, who testifies that those who are capable of psychic chastity can maintain their continence without any fear of their health, which does not depend on the satisfaction of the sexual instinct. “There has been unfitting and light talk,” writes Professor Alfred Fournier, “about the dangers of continence for the young men. I can assure you that if these dangers exist I know nothing about them and that as a physician I am still without proof of their existence, though I have had every opportunity in the way of subjects under my professional observation. “Besides this, as physiologist I will add that true virility is not attained before the age of twenty-one, or thereabouts, and the sexual necessity does not obtrude itself before that period, especially if unhealthy excitements have not aroused it prematurely.

Sexual precocity is merely artificial, and is most often the result of ill-directed upbringing. “In any case, be sure that danger of this kind lies far less in restraining than in anticipating the natural tendency; you know what I mean.” Lastly, after these most authoritative testimonies, to which it be easy to add many others, let us quote the resolution unanimously voted at Brussels in 1902 by the 102 members present at the second General Congress of the International Conference of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, a congress which assembled together the most competent authorities on the subject throughout the world: “Young men must above all be taught that chastity and continence are not only not harmful, but also that these virtues are among those to be most earnestly recommended from the purely medical and hygienic standpoint.” There was also a unanimous declaration issued by the professors of the Medical Faculty of Christian University, a few years ago: “The assertion that a chaste life will be prejudicial to the health rests, according to our unanimous experience” on no foundation. We have no knowledge of any harm resulting from a pure and moral life.” The case has, therefore, been heard, and sociologists and moralists can repeat with M. Ruysen this elementary and physiological truth, “that the sexual appetite does not need, like the requirements of aliment and exercise, a minimum of necessary satisfaction. It is a fact that man or woman can lead a chaste life without experiencing, except in the case of a few abnormal subjects, serious disturbance or even painful inconvenience. It has been said and cannot be too often repeated, since such an elementary truth can be so widely disregarded that no disease ever comes through continence to normal subjects, who form the immense majority while many diseases, very well known and very serious, are the results of incontinence. Nature has provided in the most simple and infallible way for the excess of nutrition which is represented by the seminal fluid and the menstrual flux.” Dr. Viry is therefore right in denying that the question is one of a true instinct or a real need:

“Everyone knows what it would cost him not to satisfy the need of nourishment or to suppress respiration, but no one quotes any pathological consequences, either acute or chronic, as having followed either temporary or absolute continence. In normal life we see the example of chaste men who are neither less virile in character, nor less energetic in will, nor less robust, than others, nor less fitted to become fathers if they marry. A need which can be subject to such variations, an instinct which accommodates itself so well to lack of satisfaction, is neither a need nor an instinct.” Sexual relationship is far from answering to any physiological need of the growing boy; quite the contrary, it is perfect chastity which is sternly required by the exigencies of his normal growth and development, and those who violate it cause irreparable injury to their health. The attainment of puberty is accompanied by great changes, a veritable disturbance of various functions, and a general development. The adolescent boy needs all his vital strength, for during this period there is often a weakening of the resistance to sickness: disease and mortality are higher than in the earlier period . . . The long work of general growth” of organic evolution, that whole series of physical and psychic changes, at the end of which the child becomes a man, involves a toilsome effort of nature. At that moment, all over-driving is dangerous, but especially the premature exercise of the sexual function.

Reference:

 

Young India, 22-7-1926