notion that sexual indulgence and all that appertains to it is something low and degrading, at the worst a mere natural necessity, at the best a duty to be accomplished in a direct, honorable and straight-forward manner.  No one seems to have told them that love is an art, and that to gain real possession of a woman’s soul and body is a task that requires the whole of a man’s best skill and insight.  It may well be that when a man learns his lesson too late he is inclined to turn ferociously on the society that by its conspiracy of pseudo-morality has done its best to ruin his life, and that of his wife.  In some of these cases husband or wife or both are finally attracted to a third person, and a divorce enables them to start afresh with better experience under happier auspices.  But as things are at present that is a sad and serious process, for many impossible.  They are happier, as Milton pointed out, whose trials of love before marriage “have been so many divorces to teach them experience.”

The general ignorance concerning the art of love may be gauged by the fact that perhaps the question in this matter most frequently asked is the crude question how often sexual intercourse should take place.  That is a question, indeed, which has occupied the founders of religion, the law-givers, and the philosophers of mankind, from the earliest times.[389] Zoroaster said it should be once in every nine days.  The laws of Manes allowed intercourse during fourteen days of the month, but a famous ancient Hindu physician, Susruta, prescribed it six times a month, except during the heat of summer when it should be once a month, while other Hindu authorities say three or four times a month.  Solon’s requirement of the citizen that intercourse should take place three times a month fairly agrees with Zoroaster’s.  Mohammed, in the Koran, decrees intercourse once a week.  The Jewish Talmud is more discriminating, and distinguishes between different classes of people; on the vigorous and healthy young man, not compelled to work hard, once a day is imposed, on the ordinary working man twice a week, on learned men once a week.  Luther considered twice a week the proper frequency of intercourse.

It will be observed that, as we might expect, these estimates tend to allow a greater interval in the earlier ages when erotic stimulation was probably less and erotic erethism probably rare, and to involve an increased frequency as we approach modern civilization.  It will also be observed that variation occurs within fairly narrow limits.  This is probably due to the fact that these law-givers were in all cases men.  Women law-givers would certainly have shown a much greater tendency to variation, since the variations of the sexual impulse are greater in women.[390] Thus Zenobia required the approach of her husband once a month, provided that impregnation had not taken place the previous month, while another queen went very far to the other extreme, for we are told that the Queen of Aragon, after mature deliberation, ordained six times a day as the proper rule in a legitimate marriage.[391]