That the change in the status of woman implies difficulty in the marriage relationship.  If only one will is expected to be dominant in the household, the man’s, then there can arise no conflict.  If the form of the household is unaltered, but if the woman demands its control or expects equality, then conflict arises.  If a woman expects a man to beat her at his pleasure, as has everywhere been the case and still is in some places, if she considers it just, brutality exists only in extremes of violence.  If she considers a blow, or even a rough word, an unendurable insult, then brutality arises with the commonest disagreement.  In other words, it is comparatively easy to deal with a woman expecting an inferior position, whose individual tastes, wills, ideas, and ideals have never been developed,—­the ancient woman; it is very much more difficult to deal with her modern sister.

Happily the day is passing when prudery governed the discussion of sex.  Lewdness exists in concealment, suggestion is more provocatory than frankness.  The morbidness of men who condemned themselves to celibacy has influenced the world; their fear of sex led to a misguided silence shrouding the wrecks of many a life.

The sex relationship is the basis of marriage.  The famous couplet of Rosalind still holds good.  The sex instinct (or rather instincts, for coupled with sex-desire is love of beauty, admiration, joy of possession, triumph, etc.) has the unique place of being more regulated by law and custom than any other basic instinct.  The law holds that no marriage is consummated until the sex act has taken place, regardless of the words of preacher or State official.  The happiness of the first year or years of married life is mostly in its voluptuous bonds, for companionship and comradeship have really not yet arisen.  Complementary to this it may be said that much of married misery, especially for the woman, arises from the first marital embrace.

This last is because of the ignorance of men and women, an ignorance wholly due to prudery.  The majority of women have been chaste before marriage; the majority of men have not.  One would expect therefore knowledge of men, the knowledge of experience.  But the experience has been gained with women of a certain type and has not equipped the man to deal with his wife.  Though most women know in advance what is expected of them, some are even ignorant of the most elemental facts of sex, and even those who know are unprepared for reality.

Too frequently the man regards himself as a Grand Seigneur with a paramount “Jus Primis Noctis.”  True, the majority of men are abashed in the presence of innocence and deal gently with it,—­but others follow in a repellent way their instinct of possession.  Any neurologist of experience has cases where sexual frigidity and neurasthenia in a woman can be traced back to the shock of that all-important first night.

There are savage races in which preparation for marriage is an elementary part of education.  We need not follow them into absurdity, but more than the last silly whispered words to bride and groom at the ceremony is necessary.  A formal antenuptial enlightenment, frank and expert, is needed by our civilization.