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 regards 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.  On the one hand, he may treat his bride as a prostitute, or as a novice to be speedily moulded into the sexual shape he is most accustomed to, thus running the risk either of perverting or of disgusting her.  On the other hand, realizing that the purity and dignity of his bride place her in an altogether different class from the women he has previously known, he may go to the opposite extreme of treating her with an exaggerated respect, and so fail either to arouse or to gratify her erotic needs.  It is difficult to say which of these two courses of action is the more unfortunate; the result of both, however, is frequently found to be that a nominal marriage never becomes a real marriage.[385]