Whether or not the American domestic life is too intimate, too constant, is an important question.  For the majority of people, after the first ecstasy of the bridal year, separate rooms might be better than a single chamber occupied together.  There are people to whom one bed and one room is symbolic of their close unity, of their joined lives, who find comfort and companionship in the knowledge that their life partner sleeps beside them.  Where sexual compatibility or adjustment exists, there is nothing but commendation for this arrangement.  Where it does not exist, the separate chambers are better for obvious reasons.

A development of recent times is the rapidly increasing use of what are politely known as birth-control measures.  This development is rapidly changing the number of births in the community to a figure below that necessary for the perpetuation of the race.  We are not concerned here with the morality or immorality of these measures.  Modern woman undoubtedly will continue to take the stand that childbearing should be voluntary, that involuntary motherhood is incompatible with her dignity and status as a person.  In this, through the increasing cost of living as well as sympathy with her attitude, she will be backed by her husband.  I predict without fear that Church and State will have to adjust themselves to this situation.

The fear of pregnancy has brought about this situation, that many a woman undergoes an agony of symptoms which is only relieved when her monthly function appears.  This fear makes the sexual relationship a risk almost outweighing its pleasure.  The notoriously “unsafe” character of the contraceptive measures has only diminished this fear, not completely allayed it.

Moreover the contraceptive measures, according to the law that every “solution” breeds new problems, have their place in causing nervousness.  Rarely do these measures replace the natural act in satisfaction.  Further, some are unable to conquer their repugnance and disgust and some are left excited and unsatisfied.  Vasomotor disturbances, neurasthenic symptoms, obsessions, and hysterical phenomena occur in many women as well as in some men.  One of the stock questions of the neurologists when examining a married man or woman complaining of neurasthenic symptoms relates to the contraceptive measures used.  The channel of discharge of sexual excitement is race old.  And this new development blocks that channel.  For many persons this is sufficient to deenergize the organism.

At the present time there are two trends in the sex sphere, so far as women are concerned.  There is the masculine trend, which is usually called feminism.  Women tend to take up the work formerly exclusively belonging to men; they tend to dress more like men, with flat shoes, collars and ties, and tailor-made clothes.  They take up the vices of men,—­smoking, drinking,—­are building up a club life, live in bachelor apartments, call each other by their last names, etc.